The builder and the plan;

6* o-***

^ •

o " •

+*o« •■

i-- "W V

«5°<

4 •'

^ ^

**o«

L> - « • o

.•' .o*

^'^^T*'.^

^ ' • • • *V

V V*

^* «T *+ ^Rp** ** * ••

^••\o° ** 'Trs^v^1

> • •••* ^ aT ••VL'* *>

9s , & ** •:

:. ° J.H* Vi

J&

THE BUILDER AND
THE PLAN

A TEXT-BOOK OF THE
SCIENCE OF BEING

BY

V

URSULA N. GESTEFELD

AUTHOR OF "HOW WE MASTER OUR FATE," "THE BREATH OF
LIFE," "REINCARNATION OR IMMORTALITY?" ETC.

V

> > j > >

, ' ■ •

i i >

PELHAM, N. Y.

THE GESTEFELD PUBLISHING CO.

1901

THE LIBRARY OF

CONGRESS,
Two Cow es Received

APR. 17 1901

Copyright ewTry

CLASSAyxXc. N«.

COPY B.

,\

k

^ $

\o

COPTKIGHT, 1901, BY

URSULA N. GESTEFELD

All rights reserved

• •

• ••

• • •

• • • •

... .••

• • • •

• • • . <

• •
• <

t • •

• • •

• • •

• • ••• i

• • •

• • <

: ••• : •:

• • . • j

• •

•••

•

• ••

• •

■ • •

• • • • . • .

• •

•

• •

• ... .

• ••• . .

•••

•.•

•••"

"Science of Being — Knowledge of Being,
verified by correct thinking, reduced
to law, and embodied in system."

(Co
MY PUPILS,

WHO HAVE LEARNED THE WAY OF SELF-MASTERY AND
ARE ENDEAVORING TO WALK THEREIN ; WHO PROVE THEIR
LOYALTY TO BOTH TEACHER AND TEACHING BY EFFORTS TO
LIVE IN CONFORMITY TO THE STANDARD HEREIN SET FORTH J
WHO GRANT TO ALL THE RIGHT TO INDIVIDUAL FREEDOM
AND REFRAIN FROM DENUNCIATION OF THOSE WHO DO NOT
AGREE WITH THEM ; WHO SEE THE DIVINE IMAGE IN EVERY
MAN AND BUILD NO WALL OF DIVISION, BUT CULTIVATE A
SPIRIT, CHARITY, AND HELPFULNESS FOR ALL, WITH A LOVE
THAT FINDS ITS BEST EXPRESSION IN UNFAILING SERVICE.

MAT WE "ALL COME IN THE UNITY OF THE FAITH AND OF THE
KNOWLEDGE OF THE SON OF GOD, UNTO A PERFECT MAN."

PREFACE.

In presenting the system of thought named " The Science
of Being " I ask that it be considered an argument only, by
those to whom it is not a revelation. To be sound as an argu-
ment it must be a logically consistent whole. To have prac-
tical value it must afford room for known facts. As an
argument the vulnerability of its conclusions to criticism must
depend upon true logical relation, or lack of it, to the premise
from which they are drawn. The results of its use as a guide
to daily living can be known only by the recipient, will be
valued according to the measure of benefit received.

Used as a working hypothesis by one who seeks knowledge,
it may lead to more satisfying views of life and its meanings,
or it may not. Decision rests with the seeker, with the student
rather than the reader.

Let those who cavil or protest do what is pointed out as to
be done, and then say whether or no the declared results are
possible. It is easy to criticise, to deny, to look for vulnerable
places; it is not so easy to follow directions implicitly before
rendering judgment, but it is the only fair method of pro-
cedure, more than that, it is the only method of more than
intellectual proof.

It were idle to expect or desire that this teaching will cause,
in any case, immediate abandonment of denominational doc-
trines, but proof abounds that it will accelerate inevitable
growth beyond their limitations. All real reform is the re-
sult of growth, not belief. Growth is the attainment of an
ideal. Change in an ideal is the result of experience. Though

experience is the destroying angel in human life it is also the

7

8 PREFACE.

angel of revelation. In both cases the angel's office is minis-
tration.

If this book stimulates willing readers to become seekers,
inspires them with confidence that they may know " the mys-
teries of the kingdom," places before their willing vision the
ideal of God and Man that draws them steadily from material-
ity to spirituality, impels them to do their own part toward the
coming of the kingdom of God, it will fulfil its mission though
no new sect with an array of costly temples challenge the
wonder of the world.

Only a small portion of what is included in the Science of
Being is given here. I have aimed at broad outlines, rather
than at multiplicity of detail, wearying and confusing till the
order and intent of the outlines are grasped. As a building
is according to plan and the plan is evidenced in the foundation,
the succeeding stories, vary from each other as they may, must
conform to the plan and rest secure on the foundation.

So far as my present perception extends, the vital questions
affecting human existence and experience have their answers
in this foundation and plan. To the workman are these
answers given, and the measure of his ability to see and hear
them, of his willingness to use and prove them, will determine
the quality of his work. Building and builder ascend to-
gether. If the plan and foundation be eternal, the building
stands for always, and the workman is inseparable from his
work.

The old question still unanswered by Theology, for which
Science unwittingly seeks an answer — How is the Son of God
begotten in the Son of Man? — is answered by a life that is
this begetting, by the building reared on this foundation.
Law, not miracle, governs from beginning to end. Greater
than any man-made miracle imposed as law upon the un-
thinking, is the Infinite Naturalness that transforms Humanity
into Divinity.

ANOTHER FOREWORD.

Some of the fundamental propositions of " The Science
of Being " are not original with myself. I first read of them
in 1884 in the book " Science and Health.'' The following
month I entered one of Mrs. Eddy's classes and received her
personal instruction. I make glad and grateful acknowledg-
ment to her for the teaching that was then bread to my hungry
soul, that has proved itself spiritual food for many hungry
souls since that time, that will continue to feed multitudes in
the future.

Whatever the mistakes or shortcomings of " Christian
Science " or " Christian Scientists," or even of Mrs. Eddy
herself, this teaching has wrought a mighty work in the
world that can neither be ignored, nor sneered nor legislated
out of existence. It came as supply to a demand created by
soul-famine, a demand which no human opposition ever has or
ever will destroy. All honor to " Christian Science " for the
good it has done, all charity for the mistakes that have attended
the doing.

While a member of the class instructed by Mrs. Eddy, not-
withstanding the benefit received and the gratitude felt, I
saw the lack in her teaching. Though " a light shining in
the darkness " it removed but a measure of the darkness.
Earnest and honest questioning legitimate to the declarations
made failed to elicit answers that reconciled contradictories.

This failure to present a science while using that term for the

9

10 ANOTHER FOREWORD.

teaching compelled further seeking on the part of one who
would know rather than believe. For seventeen years I have
prosecuted the search for what was lacking, impelled by the
sentiment " Truth for authority, not authority for truth/' with
results that have made me doubly thankful it was my privilege
to have been taught by Mrs. Eddy as a preparation for the
exploration of a previously unknown country.

This exploration has led to the formulated system of
thought named " The Science of Being " that is legitimate
and necessary successor to " Christian Science "; for the fun-
damental propositions of that teaching lead directly to what
is herein set forth and the conclusions are positively essential
to the integrity of the propositions. If they do not appear
necessary to Christian Scientists it must be because they fail
to see either logical continuity, or the need for it in order to
establish a science.

The sometimes unsparing criticism that Christian Science
and its text book have met has been due, largely, to the lack
of logic and submergence of cause -and effect. This hiatus
between fundamentals and ultimates has been bridged by the
chain of " direct revelation " from God to the author of the
book as His specially chosen instrument; a momentous fact
that renders so small a thing as logical coherence unnecessary.
But when the fanatical fervor due to this claim begins to
abate, and the still unmet needs of the reasoning soul are re-
leased from the stupor in which they are rigidly kept through
desire and effort to be faithful to both revelation and revelator,
the feeling of need for such coherence will become strong
enough to overcome the fear that now prevents most Chris-
tian Scientists from admitting this hiatus. Then they will
be ready for the normal and natural bridge that belongs to
both fundamentals and ultimates, welcoming it in place of
the abnormal and unnatural claim that is directly contrary

ANOTHER FOREWORD. 11

to the basic proposition of Christian Science — God is Prin-
ciple.

This being the admitted basic truth of Christian Science,
how can Principle choose ? How can God as Principle choose ^
the author of " Science and Health " or any one member of
the human race above all others as the one and only medium
of revelation of truth to mankind? Is not choice on the part
of the seeker, rather? He who seeks may find.

I found Mrs. Eddy's basic proposition " God is Principle "
to be logically sound and capable of logical proof. Seeing the
necessity of working out, by adherence to logic, the conclusions
compelled by this premise, rather than believing any personal
opinions contrary to it, even though these opinions were in-
corporated as part of the teaching, I followed it as a clue to
explanations not given in " Christian Science." Finding these
conclusions to be in logical agreement with the basic proposi-
tion, and, therefore, satisfactory, believing then, in my sim-
plicity, that many who accepted " Christian Science " in the
main would be glad to know of and welcome them, I tried to
impart them only to be met with stern rebuke for my " pre-
sumption and blasphemy."

Eealizing at last, though with a shock, that such effort
could not be understood, that if my utterances as a teacher did
not accord with the views of " Christian Scientists," or meet
the approval of Mrs. Eddy, even though they were in full
accord with the principles that are the real strength of " Chris-
tian Science," strict justice required I should use another
name. After a few years of work under that head, during
which I published " A Statement of Christian Science " call-
ing it " An Explanation of Science and Health," I dropped the
term and substituted instead " The Science of Being." With
this designation for my work I have been teaching for many
years with both tongue and pen the views herein set forth. As

12 ANOTHER FOREWORD.

a public work I have presented them to thousands; as a more
responsible private work I have instructed but few who can
justly claim to speak of my teaching with authority.

This work of seeking and teaching has been carried on
under the greatest possible difficulties imposed by fanatical,
therefore ignorant, efforts to destroy and prevent it. If I
refer to these now it is because of a desire to enlighten, not to
condemn any one. The true seeker for wisdom, the faithful
helper of his fellow-men, must give himself to his work and
prosecute it for the work's sake, regardless of either approba-
tion or condemnation. Only by the earnestness due to his
deep conviction and abiding faith that truth must triumph at
last no matter what the immediate obstacles in the way, can
he calmly continue his efforts in the face of all threatenings and
denunciation, feeling not resentment and desire for retalia-
tion, but " Father, forgive them for they know not what they
do."

The efforts, open and concealed, made by leading Christian
Scientists to nullify teachings, to brea'k down and destroy teach-
ers of which and of whom they do not approve, is due, mainly,
to their hoRest belief that all such teaching is error which it
is their bounden duty to destroy if possible. This effort is
also the accompaniment of the belief that Mrs. Eddy is the
Christ, is a higher manifestation of God than was Jesus of
Nazareth.

To honestly believe this is to pursue relentlessly, as a di-
vinely imposed necessity, anything and any one that contra-
dicts it. As in past ages so to-day ignorance is the persecutor
and enlightenment the savior, while mistaken self-interest
prompts the answer to the question " Whom will ye that I
release unto you "? And it is too often the robber that is set
free while the savior is held in bonds.

History repeats itself. The burning of books required of

/

ANOTHER FOREWORD. 13

those who shall be admitted into fellowship with Christian
Scientists, because there is and can be but one that teaches
truth, is but repetition in the present day of the acts of past
ages and is prompted by the same spirit. It is an effort to
destroy error, to save the people from being inoculated by
it, but the past has proved that the light of the conflagration
has revealed truth instead, and been the means of spreading it
throughout the world.

The Christian Science body is one of the most powerful
batteries in the world to-day, with, consequently, a mighty
influence for good so far as its teachings are sound and true,
but also with, unfortunately, a corresponding influence for
blinding and holding in bonds those who do not think far
enough to discriminate between principles and opinions.
Wisely directed, this influence tends to uplift and save; mis-
directed it enslaves. It enslaves those, who from present
incapacity, or from motives of policy and expediency, can not,
or will not think for themselves ; it opens a door to the glories
of the infinite for those who can stand as individuals claiming
and using their God-given birthright.

Nothing is so subtle as self-deception. The more one
really knows the less his inclination and effort to destroy any-
thing, for he sees that error in inevitably self-destroyed, car-
ries in it the seeds of its own death, and he had best devote all
his thought and work to the upbuilding that is sure to stand if
it rests upon a rock foundation.

To all such workers I would say, " Keep a stout heart
though you stand alone, for the force of the Infinite is with
you to sustain you. Be content with doing what you can, do
it faithfully, earnestly, persistently, leave the results to the
Most High, they are not your concern. Do not pattern your
life and effort on what is demanded of you by men, but on
what your discernment compels. Be true to the truth un-

14 ANOTHER FOREWORD.

veiled to you though all men call you a liar and blasphemer.
So shall you follow the Great Example and, though it be long
years after you have joined the unseen, your message shall win
the world."

The right to a teaching, the claim that may be made, seems
for many a vexed question that may be best answered, perhaps,
by illustration. 'No one can claim proprietary right to truth.N
It is a common inheritance for all men, but a means by which
they are brought face to face with it and helped to take pos-
session of it may originate with one man. When a company
of people go to a new country to populate it their needs de-
mand water. It is a common need to be met by a common
supply. The water is there, was there before their arrival,
but it is deep under ground.

How are the need and the supply to be brought together?
Some one of the number digs a well, a way to the water is
found, the water fills the well, the needs of the people are
met. The water is for all alike, the well as a means for ob-
taining water is for all alike, but as the work of the workman
it is his alone. All may drink from the well, but all did not
dig the well.

The well and the water are found together by those who
have need. Seeing only that this is the common need, the
supply the common supply, they may overlook what stood
between the need and the supply. The digger of the well
worked hard and long before the water filled it, and it is possi-
ble his efforts may have been spurred by his knowledge of the
needs of others. How could he fail to know their need by his
own? The enlightened worker will never claim the water of
truth as his own. Truth is never created by man, never
bought or sold. It is uncovered by understanding.

In his thankfulness that he has been able to minister to

ANOTHER FOREWORD. 15

the needs of others the workman may not even claim the well,
may yield his own work as freely as the waiting water is
yielded. Those who drink from the well may never ask for
the workman, may not even recognize that a work has been
done for them without which they could not at that time have
had water. In his joy at giving, this, too, will not matter.

If some there be who, besides drinking the water, claim
also the well as their own work, he may not contend with them
because he knows that soon or late they, not he, must experi-
ence the consequence of their own injustice. They have not
yet drank of the deep water, they are intoxicated with the joy
of a supply for the common thirst, the privilege of handing
it from the well. They forget the slow laying of one stone
on another, the days and nights of toil and sweat, the bent
back and bleeding hands, the loneliness and pain in which the
way has been opened for them; but the Eternal never forgets
and the regenerated human forgives.

Ursula !N~. Gestefeld.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER PAGE

I. The Builder and the Plan 21

II. The Steadfastness of Nature .... 23

III. The Nature of Principle 25

IV. Creator and Creation 28

V. Factors in the Eternal Order . . 30

VI. Illustration 32

VII. The Onlooker and the Possible Discoverer . 34

VIII. Genus and Species ...*.... 39

IX. Creation is Logical Necessity .... 40

X. Expression 44

XI. Active and Passive Aspects of First Cause . 49

XII. Further Consequence of Primal Motion . . 52

XIII. Consequence of Derived Motion .... 55

XIV. The Nature of the Compound Factor . . 59
XV. Variety in Unity 63

XVI. Distinct but not Separate 66

XVII. The Forming Power 70

XVIII. Recapitulation 75

17

18 CONTENTS.

CHAPTER PAGE

XIX. The Onlooker in Nature 84

XX. Existence 92

XXI. The Composition of a Man .... 96

XXII. Body 98

XXIII. Environment 103

XXIV. The Influence of Environment . . .106
XXV. Susceptibility to Impression . . . .110

XXVI. The Composite Nature of Derived Being . 113

\ XXVII. Mortal Sense 119

XXVIII. Mortality and Immortality . . . .123

XXIX. The Initial Impulse and its Persistence . 127

XXX. The End from the Beginning. . . .129

XXXI. Individuality and Personality . . .132

XXXII. Fundamental Rules 136

XXXIII. The Major and Minor Purpose . . .139

XXXIV. Natural Tendency . . . . . . .143

XXXV. Original Sin 146

XXXVI. The Self-idea 149

XXXVII. To Create and to Form 153

XXXVIII. The Immaculate Conception . . . .158

XXXIX. The Origin of Evil 163

XL. Choice 169

XLI. The Personal Order 173

XL1I. The Soul Stages or States of Existence . 177

CONTENTS.

19

CHAPTEB PAGE

XLIIL Duration of the Human Person . . .181

XLIV. The Relation of Person to Embodiment . 185

XLV. Integration and Disintegration . . .189

XLVI. Indestructibility of Matter .... 193

XL VII. Sin, Sickness and Death 197

XLVIII. Therapeutics 203

XLIX. Curing and Healing 208

L. Use of Auto-Suggestion for Healing . . 212

LI. The Limitations of Hypnotic Suggestion . 219

LII. Experience 229

LIII. The Common Mental Atmosphere . . . 232

LIV. Heredity 239

LV. Locality 242

LVI. .The Lost Word 244

t LVII. The Responsibility of a Healer . . . 246

LVIII. The Use of Material Remedies . . . 252

LIX. Freedom and License 259

LX. What Demonstration Includes J ..... . 261

LXI. Science and Religion 263

LXII. From Dust to Divinity 267

LXIII. The Relation of the Bible to the Science

of Being 270

LXIV. The Difference between Christian Science

and the Science of Being .... 273

CHAPTER I.

The Buildek and the Plan.

All accomplishment is preceded by a plan. An enduring
work, one that can withstand the shocks of time, depends
upon completeness of plan, its adaptation to needs, and strict
conformity to plan in all efforts to bring it to actualization.
The importance of the plan can not be overestimated, con-
formity in effort should not be underestimated.

If this is true in human affairs should it not be true in
the Original Affairs that antedate time and human effort?
And if true of Original Affairs, faithful conformity to the
Plan is the only way by which the Plan can be actualized.

This compels a Science of Being and Existence, the ab-
stract truth that is without human origin, which, when found,
permits a human formulation that presents the abstract truth
to those who can receive it.

On coming into existence we are confronted by a world in
which is found order and relatedness. What is the nature
and origin of this world, and what am I, the Onlooker?

This is the question of past, present and future days, the
riddle to be solved by whatever is capable of reaching such
solution. The human being is the questioner. Is he also
the reader of the riddle?

As the questioner he is the seeker who gains knowledge

along two lines — Science and Religion. As the seeker he is

also the verifier of the knowledge gained on either or both

21

22 THE BUILDER AND THE PLAN.

lines. This knowledge is verified as experience. The experi-
ence that unites the knowledge gained from Science with the
knowledge gained from Religion, verifying both as two faces
of one Truth, enables the seeker to say " I have found. For
me, the questions are answered, the riddle solved."

He who feels that he has found becomes the helper of
those who are still seeking, the mediator between the un-
known and the known, the revelator, for those who are grop-
ing without finding, who must point to the Plan underlying
Nature and awaiting discovery. The Plan discerned, build-
ing according to it follows. If the revelator be building for
himself, his example and work become the accompanying
verification of his words, and the helpful stimulus for others
in their attempts at conformity to Plan.

We are told that Jesus of Nazareth was the son of a
carpenter. A carpenter is a builder, and his work of building
must be according to prior plan. The Son of the carpenter
was the builder of the divine character, hence the helper,
mediator, revelator, and example for others; a needed stimulus
in their efforts to conform to the Original Design, unfolded
to their vision by both his precept and his example. That
Original Design is, and must be, to-day what it was in the
days of the Nazarene, changeless throughout all future days.

Every child born into the world is the Onlooker that is the
possible discoverer of the Plan, the Original Design ante-
dating all he sees. He is to be a builder, carrying out that
Design in Ms own person. He is to build character till the
Original Design is incarnated in him as the Living Plan.
This destiny awaits each new member of the human race.
It follows, then, that discovery of the Original Design is the
first step toward the fulfilment of that destiny.

CHAPTER n.

The Steadfastness of Nature.

"We say that Nature is steadfast. Her processes can be
anticipated because she is steadfast. Sunset is followed by
sunrise, summer succeeds spring and is followed by autumn
and winter. This steadfast order can be counted upon, and
the harvest confidently expected after seed-sowing.

There can be no Science of Being and Existence except
there be a compelling Principle. The steadfastness of Nature
must be due to a compelling Principle. No one, past or pres-
ent, makes an apple-tree grow from apple-seed though such ,
growth can be confidently relied upon. This reliance would
be misplaced did any one possessing the power of choice cause
a seed to produce after its own kind; for then it could be
made to produce after another kind.

Because principle and not choice determines result, the
result can be anticipated, known before its arrival. For one
who can choose there is more than one way in which to act.
For principle there is only one way. How principle will act,
therefore, can be accurately determined. How the possessor
of the power of choice will act is always open to conjecture,
and certainty is impossible.

It is the difference between the personal and the imper-
sonal. Nature is impersonal, her governing Principle is im-
personal, and the personal delver into her mysteries must find
the impersonal if he would be successful. The variety in

Nature must be the relativity of parts in a continuous whole.

23

24 THE STEADFASTNESS OF NATURE.

Where there is relativity there is order; where there is order
there is design; where there is design there is that which
compels it. To follow the order and understand the design
it is necessary to trace it from the basis of governing prin-
ciple, working deductively. The proposition, then, upon
which the formulation in statement of the Science of Being
and Existence is based, is — The origin of creation is without
power of choice; hence is impersonal.

CHAPTER III.
The Nature of Principle.

Principle. — Beginning ; commencement. Cause in the widest
sense ; that by which anything is in any way ultimately regulated or
determined. — (Dictionary. )

It is said that God is the author of Creation, hence the^
question " What is God " becomes of first interest. For the
stability of Creation, the Creator must be without power of
choice as to what it shall be, must be stable in nature and
action, while of infinite resource.

If God is one who chooses to create, then before that in-
tention was formed there could have been no""Creation.
Moreover, the Creation resulting from such intention would
be entirely dependent upon the next intention of the Creator
for its continuance, for it could be perpetuated or annihilated
according to choice. /

Such a Creation could not be stable, governed by law,
presenting a steadfast continuity. There would be no law,
only the wish of the Creator. This wish, intention, choice,
would be either the sustenance or destruction of Creation,
and therefore Creation would be capable of change.

Again, if the Creator produced Creation from choice, this

human nature of the Creator would compel a substance other

than that Creator, out of which to make the Creation. But

if the Creator be Principle, out of Principle itself must come

its consequence; must, because Principle does not possess and

exercise the human power of choice.

25

v

26 THE NATURE OF PRINCIPLE.

Principle is that which stands forever beyond the limita-
tions of desire or intention. Its product is that which is com-
pelled by the nature of Principle. Its product would be,
therefore, the creation of which it was the creator, and this
product would be steadfast and changeless because the nature
of Principle, not any desire, wish, or intention, compelled.

REMARKS.

Try to put from you for the moment, so that you may
be able to reason clearly, your inherited view of God. Do
not, first, make effort to reconcile this inherited view with
the statement " God is Principle." In order to understand
what this premise involves and compels, it is necessary to
concentrate the attention upon it. Do not divide the atten-
tion with previous opinions in the effort to make the premise
confirm your opinion.

Truth, rather than such confirmation, should be the de-
sire. Give yourself wholly to the consideration of what this
statement means and compels. As the order unfolds to you
a reconciliation may be found that is not seen at first. Shut
out all traditional teaching for the moment and endeavor to
answer these questions from the basis of logic.

The only standard of comparison for you, if you as a stu-
dent seek to understand the statements of the Science of
Being, is the premise from which they are deduced as con-
clusions. Observe carefully and see if they are in logical
agreement with the premise, following carefully step by step
as they are reached one after another, taking care not to jump
forward in your own thought beyond the stage of the argu-
ment that is for immediate consideration.

Discipline your attention and mental activity, postponing
final judgment till the argument is concluded.

THE NATURE OF PRINCIPLE. 27

QUESTIONS.

Has Principle length, breadth and thickness?

Can we define Principle in terms of matter?

Does Principle occupy space?

Has Principle an origin in time?

Does Principle hear or speak as we hear and speak?

Can Principle plan from intention to plan?

Can any one create Principle?

Can any one or any thing be pre-existent to Principle?

Can Principle be seen as an object in space?

If not, how is it seen?

Can Principle change its own nature?

Can Principle act contrary to its nature?

Can Principle choose to act or to refrain from action?

Can Principle punish because of intent to punish?

Can Principle love because of intent to love?

Can time change Principle?

CHAPTEE IV.
Creatok and Cbeation.

Fundamental. — Pertaining to the foundation ; serving as a founda-
tion or basis, essential ; original ; elementary. — (Dictionary.)

M The law of nature is the only law of laws truly and properly to
all mankind fundamental." — Milton, Free Commonwealth.

Because the Creator, or the source of Creation, is Prin-
ciple, and not a being exercising the power of choice, the
pronoun " He " applied to the Creator is not adequately
descriptive of the nature of the Creator. " He " can choose
between two courses of action, Principle can not choose.

Creation is the orderly sequence from the Creator which
is its governing Principle that is compelled by what the Prin-
ciple is, in itself and in its operation.

This order or design must be fundamental, and therefore
eternal because no choice can change it.

Creation is natural, and in Nature there is eternal design.
Creation, as this sequential order, is finished and complete.
If there be in Creation an onlooker, this onlooker must be
the discoverer of that which is eternally natural; and the
discovery must be according to the ability to find and follow
the fundamental order. Whatever the theories of Being and
Creation, there must be the Science of Being this order
compels.

28

CREATOR AND CREATION. 29

REMARKS.

Try to see what is imperative, the must that compels.
Where there is choice there is no " must." There is a " may
be," a " perhaps " instead. There can be stability only with
the imperative.

Do not fear that if you forsake your old view of Creator
and Creation you will get into a wilderness which has no
outlet, where you will be lost. You are only laying it aside
for a time in order to consider another proposition. You can
always go back to it if you find nothing better.

Look for what is compelled rather than for what is optional
with the Creator, and do not make the mistake of thinking
that this compelling limits God.

QUESTIONS.

If the Creator is Principle does the personal pronoun
" He " describe the nature of the Creator?

Is there other beginning for Creation than the Creator?
Is Creation according to chance or law?
If according to law what is the lawgiver?
Is Creation compelled or permitted?
Is Creation eternal or temporal?

Is Creation according to the nature of the Creator, or
contrary to it?

Can the nature of Creation be changed by the Creator?
What do you understand by " fundamental " ?

CHAPTER V.

Factors in the Eternal Order.

A sequential order compels factors having an undeviating
relation to each other. Nature's factors must have each its
own place, and be incapable of transposition or change.

Each fundamental factor must be a supreme genus, under
which may belong its variety or species, over which can be
no higher genus in its own domain.

These factors, each, in its domain, a supreme genus, may
be considered, first, as three in number, viz., Expression, Rep-
resentation and Manifestation.

To express — To put forth.

To represent — To put forth anew, or a second time.
To manifest — To make plain, clear, visible, obvious to
understanding. — (Dictionary.)

Expression is what is first put forth. Representation is
what is subsequently put forth. Manifestation is the visibility
of that which precedes it. To be full and complete, Mani-
festation must include the visibility of Representation, Ex-
pression and the governing Principle that puts forth.

The enumeration compelled by the nature of causative
Principle, is, first, the Expression of the Principle, then
Re-presentation, and last the Manifestation of all.

Creation, considered as the unity of these fundamental

factors, is a trinity in unity, eternal and unvarying, each factor

30

FACTORS IN THE ETERNAL ORDER. 31

equally eternal and unvarying in nature and order. Creation
must be, therefore, stable, its governing Principle always the
same.

KEMARKS.

Study carefully the meaning of the terms used in this
chapter, as it is given in the Dictionary. This meaning will
be adhered to throughout the argument, will be carried along as
the argument develops, and you will see more and more its
application at subsequent stages.

Never confound one of these factors with another. Never
think it does not matter if you use either of the three terms
indiscriminately. Loose thinking leads to inaccurate speech.
With inaccurate speech there can be no statement of a science.
Never say " manifestation " when you mean " expression "
or " representation. " Think clearly, grasping the meaning
of each term, and seeing the difference, yet relatedness, be-
tween the three factors. Insecurity in a foundation leads to
the insecurity of what is built upon it.

QUESTIONS.

"What do you understand by " undeviating " ?

What do you understand by " order " ?

What is the order that constitutes Creation?

Why are the factors enumerated placed in such order?

Can the nature of one, or all, of them be changed?

Can their relation to each other be changed?

What compels that they are as they are?

Why is this order eternal?

Why can not God change it?

/v.

CHAPTEE VI.

Illustkation.

The nature of the unit is the governing principle of the
Science of Numbers. "Without this principle there would be
no such science; with it, this science is the result that is com-
pelled, not by choice, but by logical necessity.

The nature of the unit cannot change, for the unit can
not exercise the power of choice. It is impersonal in nature
and is therefore always to be depended upon. Hence the
Science of Numbers is exact science, positive truth. The unit
always has been, and always will be, the sum of its parts. No
one ever made it so, no one will ever unmake it. The unit is
the same yesterday, to-day, and forever.

The nature of the unit is the governing principle that
holds together the whole Science of Numbers, and affords the
differing fundamentals, with their relativity and order, that
are therein contained. This order is constant because of its
changeless governing principle; and the discovery of this
principle is necessary to the making of a mathematician.

In connection with the Science of Numbers we may find
Expression, Representation and Manifestation. Abstract
Number is the expression of the unit ; objective Figure is the
representation of the expression — of Number; and the nature
of Number, its manifold possibilities, its relation to its gov-
erning principle, made visible, become obvious, is the mani-
festation.

The Science of Numbers is a parallel to the Science of

32

ILLUSTRATION. 33

Being. As abstract truth it is dead, so far as practical value
is concerned. Only a discoverer can bring it to light, resur-
recting it from the dead. By means of discovery and appli-
cation the nature and possibilities of Number have a practical
value not before existent.

The discoverer, therefore, stands between Representation
and Manifestation. Without a recognizer there can be no
recognition, no obviousness. An onlooker is a logical neces-
sity. To the onlooker manifestation is made.

The beginner in the study of mathematics is the possible
discoverer of all pertaining to mathematics, the possible master
of all mathematical problems. Only as discoverer of that
which persistently, therefore eternally, is, can he become
master of what is presented to him by that order. He changes,
can change, nothing that is fundamental; but all that is
fundamental he can find and follow into and through -all
possible combinations.

This possibility is latent in him as the beginner. Its de-
velopment is his growth from beginner to expert mathema-
tician. This growth is the bringing forth of what is inherent.
All change is to him.

The unit and what it compels is unchanged through all.
The fundamental order, each factor in that order, the prin-
ciple that compels and governs it, are the same, whether he
be beginner or expert; therefore, given inherent capacity, it
is possible for him to become the expert, as would not be the
case were that order capable of change; were its factors sus-
ceptible of alteration.

CHAPTEK VII.
The Onlooker and the Possible Discoverer.

If there be a questioner there must be an onlooker for
Creation who sees something that stimulates questioning.

I am, I see what I call the world, what to me is Nature.
What is it and what am I?

Here is the onlooker, the questioner, the seeker, the be-
ginner. All is resolved into "I" and the "not-I"; the
looker-on and that which is seen.

Following the parallelism of the Science of Numbers, this
beginner stands before Representation awaiting Manifesta-
tion. He looks upon Figure and' awaits the manifestation of
Number and its governing Principle.)

As beginner the capacity to become an expert is latent
in him. This capacity is to develop, and the development
will constitute his growth. This growth will be change to
him, but not change in the fundamental order and its factors
that constitutes Creation.

This logical necessity that is the truth of Creation is dead
to him, but his own development is to resurrect it from the
dead, bringing it to light.

What Creation is in itself, because of its governing Prin-
ciple, is unknown to him and has no practical value. It will
have practical value only to the discoverer who finds and
applies its truth.

The beginner precedes the discoverer. As the human

34

THE ONLOOKER AND THE POSSIBLE DISCOVERER. 35

soul he stands before the World that is Representation or
Figure.

Figure, as a genus, has many kinds, many figures as
species; but as genus Figure is always Figure. No matter
what the variety of species it never becomes any thing else.
There is figure 2, figure 3, figure 4, etc.; these figures differ
from each other but the genus is fundamental and can not
change.

The human soul as the Onlooker sees the World and the
various shapes — figures — it contains, mountains, rocks, rivers,
trees, plants and numberless moving creatures.

The natural shapes, those whose aggregate makes up vis-
ible Nature, engage the attention of the Onlooker. What
are they? is the question that naturally arises. " Whatever
they are, this is all there is," would be the natural reply, for
this aggregate is all that is visible to the beginner.

The beginner in the Science of Numbers looks upon a
blackboard with figures. He stands before this Representa-
tion awaiting possible Manifestation.

He is to find that which is represented and also its gov-
erning principle, but to Mm, as he stands, making his begin-
ning, the blackboard and its numerous shapes is all there is.
He is told of Numbers, but he does not yet see Number; he
sees only blackboard and figures. What he would call the
evidence of his senses contradicts what he is told. He is on-
looker without being discoverer. Discovery is to come.'

Experience follows upon the evidence of his senses and in
time he discerns what, as the beginner, he did not see; and
because Figure was the veil hiding Number. Looking at
Figure and discerning Number he makes the discovery that
Figure is representative of Number; and that, as Representa-
tion, it is proof of the existence of Number; for if there be
a representative there must be something to be represented.

36 THE ONLOOKER AND THE POSSIBLE DISCOVERER.

Discovery multiplies and lie is on the way to become the
expert mathematician, for this way leads in, deeper and
deeper into that fundamental changeless order compelled by
governing principle. As he follows it leads him in, away
from what he first naturally looked upon. It leads him from
mere shapes to what is represented by those shapes; to num-
bers, their values, their possible combinations and applications.
From the without to the within he follows on, change to him
all the way, but no change in that which he discovers.

The human soul stands before that great blackboard, the
World, and sees the various figures upon it, some stationary,
some moving about. " This is all there is " is his verdict, for
this is sense evidence and true to him. Representation is all
he sees, for it constitutes the visible World.

He has experience, and through experience his inherent
capacity to discern is quickened. It is this capacity that makes
of the onlooker, the discoverer. When he discerns that Ex-
pression of Principle is as Number, and he sees the visible
World as its Representation, or as the Figure containing all
figures, he is on the way to become an expert in the Science
of Being; the way that leads in, deeper and deeper into that
fundamental changeless order compelled by what God is.

EEMARKS.

Try to trace the parallel between the Science of Numbers
and the Science of Being. Each is abstract truth, the eternal.
Neither can become more than it eternally is, both can be-
come more and more to you. Each has its fixed fundamentals,
fixed because compelled by the nature of their governing
principle. To discern, understand and use these fundamentals
is the necessity for you. The nature, changelessness and

THE ONLOOKER AND THE POSSIBLE DISCOVERER. 37

power of the impersonal must be sought and followed if you
would gain the manifestation that gives power and authority.

Discriminate clearly between the seen and the unseen, the
Eepresentation and the Expression. Never confuse, or seek
to mingle the two. Stand, as it were, with your back to the
Expression and, naturally, Representation will be before your
face. You will look upon it, but there are two ways to see
what is behind you.

You may turn your back upon Representation and then
Expression will confront you, but to see also the relation of
one to the other is a necessity. To turn first in one direction
and then the other is to have the eye upon one at a time,
never upon both at the same time, and this leads to perplexity
and confusion.

But if, instead, while your face is toward Representation,
the natural position, you become able to see through your-
self, you will always have both factors within range at the
same time. You will see both what stands in front of you
and what stands behind you. Then the relation of one to
the other will be more apparent, and the principle governing
the relation more readily found.

At the same time you will be both looker-on and discoverer,
seeing both visible and invisible.

QUESTIONS.

What is the difference between an onlooker and a dis-
coverer?

What is the seen?

What is to be discovered?

Where does change take place?

Why are fundamentals changeless or unalterable?

38 THE ONLOOKER AND THE POSSIBLE DISCOVERER.

Between which fundamentals does the onlooker belong?

Are looking upon, and seeing through, identical?

If not, which is first in order, and which is subsequent?

Can Principle be seen as a shape or an object?

Is the natural range of the senses limited or unlimited?

Of what is Kepresentation the proof?

What do you understand by " the great blackboard " ?

Is it a help or a hindrance to the onlooker?

What is the onlooker to accomplish?

CHAPTEE VIII.

Genus and Species.

Genus.

Expression of Principle.
The unit.

Representation — Shape.
The unit.

Manifestation.
The unit.

Species.

Differing expressions of Principle.
Fractions of the unit.

Differing shapes.
Fractions of the unit.

Differing manifestations or degrees of

manifestation.
Fractions of the unit.

In passing from fundamental factors to what they in-
clude, we pass from the simple to the complex. Fractions of
the unit of Expression compel variety of representative fig-
ures, and variety of manifestation. Hence manifestation to
the onlooker must be varied, gradual, part by part till it be-
comes complete as One.

39

CHAPTER IX.
Creation is Logical Necessity.

Absolute. — Free from every restriction, unconditional ; fixed, deter-
mined, irrevocable ; not comparative ; opposed to relative ; certain, in-
fallible ; ultimate ; not derived from anything else.

Relative. — Not absolute or existing by itself; considered as be-
longing to or respecting something else ; depending on or incident
to relation. (Dictionary.)

Creation is compelled by what God is as Principle. It is
not permitted to be by a power that could destroy as well as
originate it. Back of any and all relative or immediate causes
is the remote Cause of these causes, itself causeless as ever-
operative Principle.

From this Principle must come the sequence that is logi-
cal necessity and this sequence will constitute the Creation
of the Creator.

When we have formed our highest idea of God this con-
ception will fall short unless we have ascended, or penetrated,
to the impersonal; for back of every thing must be that which
is no thing, the impersonal Principle whose nature compels
Expression, Representation and Manifestation.

In order to give a definite nature to each of these factors,
terms that give a definite nature to Principle are necessary.
We define the impersonal First Cause as

Spirit,

Life,

Love,

40

CREATION IS LOGICAL NECESSITY. 41

Intelligence,

Substance,

Mind.

These terms are synonymous in meaning. Each is the
one impersonal Principle that is the First Cause of Creation
and all it contains. God is Spirit,

or

Life,

or

Love,

or

Intelligence,

or

Substance,

or

Mind.

With "or " read also " and." God is all these, and yet
there is but one God, one Absolute. There is but one abso-
lute Spirit, one absolute life, one absolute Love, one absolute
Intelligence, one absolute Substance, one absolute Mind; but
Creation must include the variety that is consequent upon
the nature of the one Absolute.

God is the absolute Substance, for the First Cause as gov-
erning Principle is that which stands under and supports
Creation and all it contains.
" Sub — stands under."

This Substance that is God is not measurable by our human
standards of weight or extent, but is measurable only by Ex-
pression, Representation and Manifestation; is known only
by knowing these eternal three. Wherever one is, whatever
one sees, however great, even stupendous, the variety out-
spread, however overawing its immensity, all is resolvable into
these three fundamental factors, back of which is the Sub-

42 CREATION IS LOGICAL NECESSITY.

stance-Principle that holds them forever in their relative
order.

Three in one, three in that unity which is the one Crea-
tion— analysis brings us face to face with this trinity at last,
and compels us to recognize its Principle. There is but one
God, one Absolute; of this truth we must never lose sight,
or depart from it in deduction. The nature of the unit is
one whole, it must be followed in the attempt to solve all
problems.

In the Science of Being, God is not " a " any thing what-
ever; God is the only One. From this premise logical de-
duction brings us to conclusions that agree with and confirm
it. If these conclusions are verified by modern science and
human experience, they become actually, as well as logically,
true.

REMARKS.

In tracing the nature of, and relation between, Creator*
and Creation, also the nature of, and relation between, the
three fundamental factors constituting Creation, do not forget
or overlook the definition of the terms " absolute " and " rela-
tive." The definition must be maintained and followed
throughout the argument for the remote conclusions to be
found in harmony with the premise.

Ponder well the meaning and application of each term.
Mastery of the terminology is essential to grasp of the con-
clusions, to decision as to their logical or illogical character.
The argument must be built step by step, each step depend-
ing upon its predecessor for its place and truth.

You will see that the Absolute is dependent upon nothing
for what it is. Were it dependent it could not be absolute.
Apply this definition to God and you will see that God is
dependent upon nothing for what God is as First Cause; that

- CREATION IS LOGICAL NECESSITY. 43

all idea of relativity on trie part of God is a mistaken idea.
That which is not God is relative to God, necessarily, and, as
necessarily, God is absolute to all.

Were there no Expression, Representation, or Manifesta-
tion, God would remain the same absolute One; but without
those factors the absolute One would remain forever unknown.

QUESTIONS.

Is there more than one God, as Origin of Creation?

Name the terms used to define this One.

Are differing aspects of the Origin incompatible with the
nature of this One?

Is there a plural for any of the terms used to define the
nature of First Cause?

Can you call God " an Intelligence " ?

If not, why not?

Can Substance, as the term is here used, be ponderable?

Is there more than one Mind?

Is God a loving being, or Love itself?

What do you understand by " absolute " %

What by " relative " ?

Can unity that is logical necessity, be destroyed?

How is the Absolute to be made known?

CHAPTEK X.
Expression.

Cause involves Effect. In the nature of the cause its
own effect or product lies hidden. There is nothing outside
First Cause. It is the circumference that bounds all. Out-
side it is nothing, in it is every thing; not as a small thing
is contained in a larger thing, but as the potentiality without ,.
which nothing would be existent. The essence of every living
thing, however many intervening causes we may think we
trace, is in First Cause.

Whatever is put forth by this Cause, expresses it. How-
ever much may be put forth, the Expression will be the sum
of what is put forth. An expression will be far less than the
Expression. The Expression constitutes the head or Genus
under which belongs all expressions, all the variety that is
put forth.

As the unit contains its own fractions, so this supreme
Genus contains a variety of lesser expressions of the same
Cause. These must be related to the Expression as fractions
are related to their sum, the unit.

We consider, first, the Genus, reaching classification un-
der this head farther on.

As it will be readily seen that Effect is involved in Cause
and is put forth by it, and as put forth it is the Expression
of its producing Cause, it remains to define the nature of the
Expression.

Likeness, with difference, between Cause and Effect is a

44

EXPRESSION. 45

logical necessity. Cause and Effect must be like unto, and
yet different from, each other. Were there not difference be-
tween them they would be identical. Then there would be
more than one God, more than one Absolute.

Like, and yet different. This must always be remembered
in considering the nature of, and relation between, Cause and
Effect. The nature of the Effect must be according to, or
like, the nature of the Cause, with that difference that keeps
it distinct from its Cause, preserving its identity.

According to this logical necessity we define the nature
of the Expression as follows:

Cause.

Effect

Principle,

Expression.

Spirit,

Spiritual.

Life,

Living.

Love,

Loving.

Intelligence,

Intelligent.

Substance,

Substantial.

The expression of Spirit is the Spiritual. The expression
of Life is the Living. The expression of Love is the Loving.
The expression of Intelligence is the Intelligent. The ex-
pression of Substance is the Substantial.

If God, as Eirst Cause, the governing Principle of Crea-
tion, be what is here defined, then the direct Effect or full
Expression of God is also what is here defined.

The Effect is Substantial and Intelligent, Living and
Loving, because the nature, not the wish, of its Cause compels.

Man is " the image of God " because Man, as the Effect
of his Cause, is the Expression of God ; and, as this Effect or
Expression, Man must be like unto, yet different from, God.

Man's relation to God is a logical relation and not one
that is permitted and could be changed. Because it is the

46 EXPRESSION.

logical relation inherent in the nature of Cause and Effect, it
is an eternal relation.

On this point the Science of Being gives certainty where
other teachings have given a hope.

Man's difference from God will compel certain results;
his likeness to God will compel certain other results.

Man, the Expression, one of the fundamental factors in
Creation, is the Supreme Genus that never can change as
long as his Cause remains changeless. And as Principle can
not change but is that which, by the necessity of its own nat-
ure, is incapable of change, this Supreme Genus is forever
the same; always the spiritual, living, loving, intelligent,
substantial unit that " images " God.

Think always of the word " image " as meaning " ex-
pression," and not an outlined shape or form. This is its
meaning as it is used in Genesis.

The supreme Genus, Man, is the substantial being, be-
cause changeless. His relation to his source compels his
substantiality that is not weighed or measured according to
common standards, but is discerned through logic. The
supreme Genus, Man, is the changeless, eternal Expression
of God, like unto, yet different from his Cause.

The article " the " alone, not "a " or " an," is applicable
to him. He has no plural, for he is the sum of what is put
forth by Cause — the one full and complete Expression, the
first factor in the trinity that constitutes Creation.

EEMABKS.

Try to see that a difference in nature between Cause and
Effect does not mean that the Effect is in any wise foreign to
the Cause; that the Effect is antagonistic to the Cause. This
is a mistake easily made when one thinks of " difference."

EXPRESSION. 47

Difference prevents identicalness and Man's difference
from God preserves Man's identity and God's absoluteness,
while -Man's likeness to God gives definiteness to his nature
and preserves his unity with God. Were there no difference
God and Man would be just the same. Were there no like-
ness there could be no unity between them.

As we go on we shall see that though the difference be
eternal, the unity that is also eternal gives possibilities mighty
in their results. If the argument seems but cold dry reason-
ing, remember that truth is impersonal whatever your par-
ticular bias or trend; and the more you can get away from
that bias, standing outside your feelings as it were, the more
clearly you will be able to see the everlasting foundation that
supports the structure of your daily life.

QUESTIONS.

What do you understand by the statement " All is in
God " ?

What is meant by the words " involved " and " po-
tential " ?

Can anything be evolved, or put forth from a cause that
is not already involved in it?

Can an effect be contrary, or opposed to, the nature of its
cause ?

Is the relation between cause and effect permitted or
compelled ?

Can an effect be other than an expression of its cause?

What is the difference between an expression, and the
Expression?

What is the supreme Genus?

Is there likeness between cause and effect? If so why?

48 EXPRESSION.

Is there any difference between cause and effect? If
so, why?

Is it logical to make cause and effect identical, either by
direct statement or by implication?

Is " the Spiritual " identical with " Spirit " ?

Is " the Spiritual " a part of " Spirit " ?

Is " the Intelligent " identical with " Intelligence " ? If
not, why not?

Are " Life " and " the Living " the same?

What is the difference between " a living thing or being "
and " the Living thing or being " ?

Is there a difference between " an intelligent thing or
being " and " the Intelligent thing or being " ?

Can an effect change its own nature? If not, why not?

What do you understand by " the image of God " ?

CHAPTER XI.

Active and Passive Aspects of First Cause.

If Cause puts forth its Effect or Expression, the putting
forth, the Action, must have place in the sequence compelled
by the nature of First Cause. Having considered what this
Cause is, and what its Expression in consequence, we must
next consider what this Cause does. First, the passive aspect
— what God is; then the active aspect — what God does.

In the Science of Being both aspects have place, and re-
sults, differing in kind, can be traced to them. "What First
Cause is, compels one result. What First Cause does, com-
pels another result; and logic shows that these results must
be like unto, yet different from, each other, and in unity with
each other.

Cause must act, or be operative. The nature of Cause
compels. The action of First Cause must be the Primal
Energy, the first Force or Motion; first in the order of
enumeration that is compelled by logical sequence from
Principle.

The putting forth, the Motion, Primal Energy, Force,
must be the link connecting Effect with its Cause.

A chain of sequence is composed of links. If these links

become separated from each other there is no chain, even

though the links are the same in themselves, either when

connected or apart. Though the links do not change, the

existence of the chain depends upon their connection.

The Science of Being must show the chain of mutually

49

50 ACTIVE AND PASSIVE ASPECTS OF FIRST CAUSE.

dependent links, compelled by the nature of the beginning
of the chain — First Cause.

The chain begins at First Cause; the first link is the
Motion of that Cause, the putting forth that gives the second
link as that which is put forth.

Substance and Motion precede all things. All things —
Creation and all it contains — are the consequence of Sub-
stance and Motion, and are compelled, not permitted.

Beginning.
Original sub-
stance.

That which
puts forth.

Cause.

Principle.
Spirit.
Life.
Love.

Intelligence.
Substance.
Mind.

Effect.

Expression.
Spiritual.
Living.
Loving.
Intelligent.
Substantial.
Idea.

Supreme.
Genus.

That which is
put forth.

Motion. -
Primal Energy.
The Putting Forth.
Force.

Clear discrimination between Substance and Motion, the
passive and active aspects of the Beginning which is God,
will find each link in the chain of sequence that is compelled
by the nature of its Beginning, and reveal the impersonal
Science of Being hidden behind our limited personal con-
sciousness. In itself, or impersonally, the chain is perfect
and complete; to our personal consciousness there are a few
links but no chain. Togic, therefore, not personal sense, must
be the guide to discovery.

ACTIVE AND PASSIVE ASPECTS OF FIRST CAUSE. 51

EEMAEKS.

Clear perception of the active aspect of Cause, as well as
of the difference between the active and the passive aspects,
is essential to the understanding of future conclusions. It is
the difference between being, and doing; a difference that
obtains throughout Creation, and especially with the worker
of the problems of existence. It is a difference all-important
when the principles of the Science of Being are practically
applied, especially in the direction of what is called " Heal- /
ing." As you desire, probably, to heal and be healed, seek
to understand the principles that yield this result when they are
intelligently and faithfully applied. To do, is as necessary
as to be.

QUESTIONS.

Why should you look to see what God does, as well as
what God is?

What do you understand by " Primal " ?

Is it, or is it not, the nature of cause, to act?

What do you understand by " sequence " ?

Is there connection between cause and effect?

If so why? and what is the connecting link?

Can a chain that is logical necessity disconnect its own
links?

Can what is involved in a cause come forth from it unless
there is a putting forth by the cause?

Can you see any method of creation by the impersonal
Creator other than the putting forth of what is involved in
the Creator?

Does the Absolute remain the same, notwithstanding the
putting forth, or does First Cause change by creating?

What is the difference between " compelled " and " per-
mitted " ?

CHAPTEE XII.
Further Consequence of Primal Motion.

Cause acts. It is the nature of Cause to act. It could
not do otherwise, it has no choice in the matter. Because
Cause inevitably acts, Effect is the inevitable consequence.

Because Cause acts ceaselessly, there is additional conse-
quence. Because God is impersonal Principle, Cod, as First
Cause, must continue active, even though the Expression is
complete.

The putting forth does not, can not, cease with the Su-
preme Genus. The Action of Cause must still continue, be-
cause it is nature, not choice, that compels.

The conclusion is obvious — 'Primal Energy, or Force,
must work through/ the Expression, continuing its onward
career; and by working through the Supreme Genus compel
further product.

This Genus must be active because it expresses Motion.

Place yourself before a mirror and remain perfectly quiet.
In the mirror will appear the expression — reflection — of
that which stands before the mirror. What you are out-
wardly, or your passive aspect, will appear in the mirror. But
this is not the full expression of what you are, for you are
capable of motion. What you are actively, as well as out-
wardly, must appear before your expression in the mirror is
complete.

Move an arm back and forth, and what is in the mirror

becomes active. It, also, is moving. Your expression in the

62

FURTHER CONSEQUENCE OF PRIMAL MOTION. 53

mirror is like you, but there is also a difference between you,
an important difference.

Both you and it are active. There you are alike. But
your activity is original, or first, and its activity is secondary,
or derived. Is not this difference important?

The Motion of First Cause is original, it is in and of it-
self, having no producing cause back of it. The action of
the Expression is not in this sense original, it has a cause back
of it; it is communicated or derived.

Endeavor to see this distinction, to grasp this fact; for
future conclusions, other links in the chain, are dependent
upon it.

Man, the Supreme Genus, the image and likeness of God,
because the Expression of that Absolute Principle that is God,
is derived from God; and though like his source is also un-
like, or different from it.

He — the personal pronoun is used for convenience — does
not first act volitionally but is acted upon; does not originate,
but carries along and perpetuates.

As derived being, derived from that Absolute Being that
is Eirst Cause, he is active because his activity is compelled
through relation to Primal Energy.

Cause. Effect.

Passive and ( Absolute Being, Derived being. \ Passive and
Active As- -< Original Motion, Derived motion. >- Active As-
pects. (Primal Energy, Transferred energy. ; pects.
In itself, Compelled by relation.

/
It is important to see that the action compelled by re- /

lation is not volitional. Whatever is compelled can not bev

volitional. The* Genus, Man, is active by nature and not from

choice. His activity, the activity of Derived being, is natural

because the relation of the Derived to the Primal compels.

Volition can neither cause nor destroy it.

54 FURTHER CONSEQUENCE OF PRIMAL MOTION.

QUESTIONS.

Does the Motion of First Cause cease with its direct
product?

If not, having produced Effect where is its future field
of action?

Can you see a cause for a derived activity, or motion?

If so where does the derived motion belong?
Can you discriminate between an action that originates
something, and one that continues something?

What do you understand by " volitional " ?

What by " compelled " ?

What by " natural " ?

What is the difference between an impersonal consequence,
and one for which conscious effort is made?

What is the difference between logical necessity and per-
sonal desire?

CHAPTER XIII.

Consequence of Derived Motion.

As there can be no motion or action without result, it
follows that a compound result must take its place as the
next factor in Creation, the next link in the chain; compound,
because we have now to consider the persistence of Original
Motion through Derived being, and the activity of Derived
being itself; an activity not volitional, but natural.

This next, and compound, factor, the unity of two con-
sequences, is a logical necessity, is another putting forth; or
is that which is put forth anew; and, as such, is the Re-
production and Re-presentation that is compelled, first, by the
persistence of Original Motion through Derived being, and,
second, by the compelled activity of Derived being.

They are not first and second in the sense of time, for in
that sense they are simultaneous. Every link in the chain so
fa?- is simultaneous with the others.

/ When dealing with the Beginning, the Absolute, we had
v but one factor to consider — Cause. When dealing with
Cause and Effect we had two factors to consider; then the two
aspects of each of these factors, passive and active. In addi-
tion we consider the persistence of Primal Action through
Derived being, which addition brings us to a result that
must be compound because many factors are concerned in it;
but which, though complex, can be clearly seen and under-
stood if we keep these several factors distinct from each other

while preserving their relatedness.

55

56

CONSEQUENCE OF DERIVED MOTION.

The order stands thus:

1. What First Cause is.

2. What First Cause does.

3. What Expression is.

4. What Expression does.

5. What First Cause does through its Expression.

6. The Compound Consequence.

This consequence must be the united result of 4 and 5.
One part must be directly related to 4, the other part to 5.
The whole must be a factor in Creation, and related to all
that precedes it in the chain of sequence.

As the Expression is what is put forth directly by First
Cause, is the Production and Presentation of what is involved
in that Cause, so the Re-production and Re-presentation is
that which is " put forth anew " as involved in the Expression.

The order may be again stated thus:

First Cause.

Absolute Being.
Principle.
God.

3

Expression.

Derived being.
Supreme Genus.
Man.

Re-production. )
Re-presentation, \

Motion
or
Primal Energy.

4. Activity of Derived being.

5. Continuance of Motion.

The link between the Supreme Genus and Re-presentation
is the action of that Genus, the activity that is not volitional,
but natural, because compelled by relation to the Absolute.
By the activity of Derived being Representation is compelled ;
and this activity is itself compelled because Effect is inevitably
according to Cause. Its nature is not self-bestowed but is,
and must be, the expression of its Cause.

CONSEQUENCE OF DERIVED MOTION. 57

The link between the Supreme Genus and Reproduction
is the continuance of Primal Energy through the Genus.
Through-ness and From-ness give the compound result.

All along the line of sequence from First Cause is the
compelling that produces each factor, each link in the chain.
It is Nature, the eternally impersonal.

REMARKS.

Do not allow yourself to lose sight for one moment of
this important distinction — Through and From. Much de-
pends upon it later on. Ability to trace each line gives ability
to perceive results on each without danger of confounding one
with the other.

Avoid the belief, " Oh ! such hair-splitting is altogether
unnecessary." The reason why we are confused when we
attempt to get satisfactory explanation of phenomena is be-
cause we do not reason clearly from principle to logical result.
We take too much for granted and, at the same time, not
enough for granted, rendering ourselves unable to see self-
evident truth.

Holding our attention to a statement till its meaning and
relation to previous statements are mastered is a self -discipline
that quickens and develops our powers.

QUESTIONS.

In following the order of the impersonal as enumeration,
are you tracing a process in time?

Were it a process in time, would it be an eternal or a
temporal order?

Are " from something " and " through something " the
same?

Can that which is directly from something be identical

58 CONSEQUENCE OF DERIVED MOTION.

with that which is indirectly from something because it is
through it?

Are immediate, and remote, cause, identical?

If Presentation is direct from First Cause, can Ke-presen-
tation be direct from it also?

What is the link between First Cause and direct Effect?
What is the link between this Effect and its effect?
Is there any consequence subsequent, in enumeration, to
direct Effect that is not directly from that Effect?

CHAPTER XIY.

The Natube of the Compound Factor.

Having found this factor — Reproduction-Representation
— and its place as a link in the chain, we will pass to a con-
sideration of its nature. To this end we must go back to our
definition of First Cause as Spirit, Life, etc. The Expression
is, logically, the Spiritual, Living, etc.

If the Production is the Spiritual, the Reproduction can
not be the same but must be the consequence of the Spiritual.
The product of Derived energy can not be identical with the
product of Primal Energy.

The product of Primal Energy — Expression — stands be-
tween Original Motion and Reproduction-Representation.
Only that which directly expresses Spirit can be the Spiritual.

The consequence of the Spiritual must have a distinguish-
ing name. This consequence is that which is related to the
Spiritual, as the Spiritual is related to Spirit.

It is a question of relatedness, of sequence, in which each
factor preserves its own distinctive nature and place; and
such names or defining terms as will reveal and preserve this
distinctive relatedness must be used.

Cause. Effect. Consequent compound effect.

Spirit."^ ^Spiritual . \-*~ -""" Reproduction — Matter.

, Representation — Shape.

Primal Energy. Derived Energy.

59

60 THE NATURE OF TEE COMPOUND FACTOR.

The word " Matter " is used as a defining term for Re-
production. Reproduction is the effect, through the Spiritual,
of persistence of Primal Energy. Matter, then, is the exten-
sion of Original Motion qualified by passing through an
intervening medium — the Spiritual.

This sequence of relatedness, this chain of distinct links,
not only reveals Matter as having fundamental place in
Creation but also its office — as will be seen further on.

Matter is neither Spirit nor the Spiritual. It is the con-
sequence of both Spirit and the Spiritual, in that it is the
result of Original Motion through an intervening medium.

Matter is neither a part of Spirit nor a part of the Spiritual.

It is a part of Creation, a distinctive part of the Whole,
as Representation, when contrasted with Reproduction, is a
distinctive part of the same Whole.

Matter, therefore, stands in direct or immediate relation
to the Spiritual as sequential in order, but not as directly
caused by the Spiritual. Whereas Representation not only
stands in immediate relation to the Spiritual as sequential in
order, but also as directly caused by the Spiritual; for it is
the effect of Derived action. As this effect it is Shape or
Limitation.

Two powers, distinct but not separate, operating simul-
taneously or in unison, must bring results in unison, distinct
but not separate from each other.

These powers being naturally operative, and outside the
domain of volition or choice, the joint result must belong
outside the domain of volition Or choice as a natural or com-
pelled result.

If the two powers are eternally operative the joint result
is an eternal natural consequence.

This argument makes Matter and Shape — as Matter is
here defined — the eternal natural phenomenon in which one

THE NATURE OF THE COMPOUND FACTOR. 61

can not be separated from the other, though one may be dis-
tinguished from the other.

As Original Motion is absolute, and Derived motion is
relative, one result is, by comparison, more limited than the
other. This limitation must appear in the joint result.

Shape or Outline is the limitation, due to the lesser power,
which is in conjunction with the result of the greater power.
If Matter and Shape belong together fundamentally, they
will be seen together by the Onlooker in Creation who must
learn to distinguish between them.

Matter, because of its nature, can be resolved into Mo-
tion; but as natural consequence having place in the eternal
order it constitutes the background or blackboard upon which
Shape or Figure appears. It is that which makes Shape or
Figure visible to the Onlooker.

4

QUESTIONS.

Is the product of Derived energy identical with the prod-
uct of Primal Motion?

If not, why not?

Can the product of the Derived energy bear the name
belonging to the product of Primal Motion?

Why is there necessity for distinguishing terms?

What is the difference between Reproduction and Rep-
resentation?

To what factor in the enumeration is the term " Matter "
applied?

Is Matter a part of Spirit?

Is Matter the absence of Spirit?

Is Matter " the Spiritual " in Creation?

Is the consequence of something an integral part of that
something?

62 THE NATURE OF THE COMPOUND FACTOB.

Is Matter intentionally created by God?

Is Matter a lie or an error?

Which is the compound factor in Creation?

As the two parts of this compound factor stand to each
other, is one of them limited and the other universal?

If so, which is the limited, and which the universal?

CHAPTER XV.

Vaeiety in Unity.

We have, now, the unit Man, the Spiritual Whole, and
the unit that may be called the Material Whole. As the
unit contains, and is the sum of, its own fractions or parts,
the Spiritual Whole must include its fractions or parts.
Equally is this true of the Material Whole.

Though the Spiritual Whole, as a fundamental factor in
Creation, is related to the Absolute Spirit, and though the
Material Whole is related to the Spiritual Whole, the rela-
tions included in this relation must be considered.

The fractions or parts of each whole must be related to
each other, and to that whole Creation in which they belong.
Each of these links, the Spiritual Whole and the Material
Whole, is itself a chain of many links, and complete in itself
as such.

The Spiritual Whole must contain all expressions of Ab-
solute Spirit, great and small; the Material Whole must
contain all objects or shapes, great and small. Each shape
in the Material Whole must represent some corresponding
portion of the Spiritual Whole; and harmony between Nou-
menon and Phenomenon must be fundamental.

The expressions of Spirit, Life, etc., must be many and

varied, ranging from least to greater and greatest. However

many they may be, their sum will be the unit, the Whole.

The variety in that Whole compels as great variety in Repre-

63

64 VARIETY IN UNITY.

sentation, the Material Whole. The spiritual thing must have
its material representative.

The range of Noumena and the range of Phenomena
must run parallel with each other; and if fundamentally
parallel, they do not blend with each other.

The Spiritual Whole, as the Spiritual or invisible Uni-
verse, and the Material Whole, as the representative or
visible Universe, are necessarily distinct from each other; yet
through their relatedness, knowledge of one must lead to
knowledge of the other. Both being fundamental factors in
Creation, as such they are equally eternal; but, also as such,
they can never mingle or change places.

As Genus, the Noumenon includes and compels variety
of noumena or species, the Phenomenon includes and compels
equal variety of phenomena. To whatever extent phenomena
may be carried, always, now and forever, the noumena are
higher than the phenomena, distinct by nature though re-
lated to them; and however dazzling, even bewildering, the
variety, all may be collected into one.

QUESTIONS.

What is classed under the head " The Spiritual Whole " ?

What under the head " The Material Whole " ?

How are these related to each other?

If they are related as wholes, have their parts correspond-
ing relations?

What do you understand by " Noumenon " ?

What by " Phenomenon " ?

What by " Noumena " ?

What by « Phenomena " ?

How are these related to each other?

VARIETY IN UNITY. 65

Do parallel lines meet?

What is the relation of the Material universe to the Spir-
itual universe?

Will the Material universe become, ever, the Spiritual
universe ?

Will the Material and the Spiritual ever change places
with each other in the order compelled by the nature of First
Cause ?

Which of the two is directly related to First Cause?
Can any of the parts of the Spiritual universe become
separated from the whole?

Can any parts of the Material universe become separated
from the whole?

Is the relation between the two wholes temporal or eternal?

Does the relation precede time, or is it created in time?

Are " spiritual " and " material " " just the same " ?

CHAPTER XVI.
Distinct but not Separate.

Distinct. — Not identical; not the same; discretely dif-
ferent from another or others; well defined; clearly distin-
guishable by the mind.

Identical. — Being the same; absolutely indistinguishable.

Separable. — Capable of being disjoined, or disunited.

Separate. — Disjoined, disunited, unconnected.

United. — Joined or combined; allied; harmonious.

Unity. — That interconnection of parts which constitutes a
complex whole; a systematic whole as distinguished from its
constituent parts.

Unit. — That which is counted, and has no reference to
multiplication. — (Dictionary.)

Let us apply these definitions to the factors, the links in
the chain, so far wrought out.
They stand thus:

1. First Cause.

2. Original Motion.

3. Effect or Expression.

4. Derived Motion.

5 and 6. The Compound Consequence \ ~> x ,.

( Kepresentation.

These factors constitute a unity, a systematic whole,

whose constituent parts must be distinguished from each

other. They must be seen as distinct but not separate from

66

DISTINCT BUT NOT SEPARATE. 67

each other, each compelling the others through logical ne-
cessity.

First Cause is the Absolute Unit to which all units sub-
sequent in enumeration are relative.

No. 3 is the unit of direct Effect that is relative to First
Cause and absolute to the Compound Consequence.

First Cause and the Expression are forever distinct from
each other, but never separate, for they are not separable.

Original Motion is absolute to Derived Motion and De-
rived Motion is relative to Original Motion. They are for-
ever distinct, but never separate, for they are not separable.

All these factors are forever distinct from each other, but
never separate, for they are not separable.

No two of them are or can be identical, no two of them
being the same, or absolutely indistinguishable. Each is
" clearly distinguishable by the mind " if not by the senses.
They are united to each other, are joined, combined, allied
and harmonious.

The variety involved in this unity affords the whole pos-
sible range of both Noumena and Phenomena. Phenomena
must be translated into Noumena, Noumena into fundamental
factors and their unity, these factors and their unity traced
to the Absolute First Cause.

If the road from First Cause to Phenomena is an open
one, from Phenomena to First Cause is an equally open road.

If the road from First Cause to Phenomena is an open
road through, or by means of, logical necessity, the road from
Phenomena to First Cause will be found only by seeing and
following the logical necessity.

It will not be followed successfully if any one factor in
the sequence is separated — for the seeker — from its companion
links in the chain, or if any two of them are made identical.
If the unity is disrupted, the road is closed, for the seeker

68 DISTINCT BUT NOT SEPARATE.

comes to an impassable gulf. If any two factors are made
identical the road ends in a blind alley.

REMARKS.

Another serious, but often found, mistake to be avoided,
due to lack of careful discrimination, is the confounding and
misapplication of the two words " distinct " and " separate."
Look at the fingers of your hand, covering all below the fin-
gers. They appear separate from each other because they
are distinct from each other. They have this appearance be-
cause their unity is out of sight. The unity not seen would
lead to the conclusion " They are all apart from each other,
are separated." But they are apart because they are not
identical. The unity that is out of sight preserves identity
even though the appearance is separateness, and while pre-
serving identity maintains difference. Uncover the hand and
with the seeming separateness is seen unity. The nature of
the hand compels distinctness without separation between the
fingers.

QUESTIONS.

Why are not First Cause and Expression separate from
each other?

Are Original Motion and Derived Motion separate from
each other?

If not, why not?

Is one part of the Compound Consequence separate from
the other?

Is this Consequence separate from First Cause?

If so, why?

If not, why not?

Is there separation between Limitation and the Absolute?

DISTINCT BUT NOT SEPARATE. 69

Is there separation between Spirit and Matter?

Is there separation between the parts of the Spiritual
whole, or between the parts of the Material whole?
Is there separation between God and phenomena?
Is there separation between phenomena and the Onlooker?
Is there separation between Creator and Creation?

CHAPTEE XVII.

The Forming Power.

Original Motion is the action of Original Substance.

f Original Substance is that which can not be analyzed. No

concept of this Substance as having length, breadth or weight

should be formed. As the changeless and unalterable, IT is

Substance, because it is changeless.

But the Derived Motion or Transferred Energy, as the
activity of Derived being, is not the activity of Original Sub-
stance. It is the Forming power, while the other is the
Creative, or life-bestowing, power.

To create, to form, and to make, are the logical essentials
involved in the relation between Creator and Creation, essen-
tials operative in the order enumerated. Creating is first, is
followed by forming, and then by making. The ideal is
created, its representative, or the object, is formed, the ideal
is made perfect in form or in incarnation.

The Forming power, therefore, is intermediary between
creating and making. Creating is first, making is last, form-
ing is between the two.

Place yourself before a mirror and move your arm. The

y reflection or expression in the mirror is also active, because

its activity is compelled. Yet its activity is its own, belongs

to it, and not to you; though it is compelled by your activity.

It is not even a part of your activity for your own loses

nothing whatever by the action in the mirror. The action in

the mirror is not a part of the action before the mirror; if it

70

THE FORMING POWER. 71

were, your action would be lessened by as much as was re-
quired to constitute the action in the mirror.

Were there a consequence, or product, of the action in the
mirror it would not appear therein. You must look elsewhere
for it, for the consequence or product can not be a part of
the producer, or the producing. It is a subsequent, and third,
factor in this enumeration, it is the produced.

The action in the mirror illustrates the Forming power;
forms of Matter, or Shapes, are its consequence. Matter and
its varying shapes or objects though distinct from each other
are not separate.

Matter is the remote product of Original Substance
through its direct product — Expression. Shapes are the
direct product of the activity of the Expression. Conse-
quently, to the Onlooker, Matter will be seen in form, or in
Shape.

A material object is resolvable into Matter and Shape,
both Matter and Shape are resolvable into Motion, Motion is
the active aspect of both God and Man.

The relation stands thus:

Derived being Matter

The Spiritual Whole Reproduction.

Product through
Derived being.

Persistence of Energy.

Derived being Representation

The Spiritual Whole. \ The Material Whole

Product from
Derived being.

The activity of
Derived being.
The Forming power.

72 THE FORMING POWER.

Variety in Spiritual Whole Variety in Material Whole

All expressions of First \ / The Representatives of

Cause less than the \ / those expressions.

Whole. \ / Differing Shapes.

Fractions of the Whole. \ / Fractions of the Whole,

\ / appearing against the

V common background.

The Forming power.

Coining words, we say, Matter is the " throughness " of
Derived being; and its Shape is the "fromness " of Derived
being; the "throughness" and " f romness " in conjunction
constituting the Material Whole, in which is distinctiveness
without separation; distinction between the Matter, or Re-
production, that is the tangibility of Shapes, and the variety
of Shapes that is the Representation of the composite nature
of Derived being.

First Cause creates, Derived being forms. All forms of
Matter, or all material shapes, are in the Material Whole, and
all expressions of

Spirit,

Life,

Love,

Intelligence,

Substance,

Mind,
are in the Spiritual Whole. The Supreme Genus, Man, in-
cludes all that is directly from First Cause. Representation
includes all that variety that is representative of the composite
nature of Man.

Matter is qualified motion, and every material shape is a
mode of that motion. Original Motion is pure, or unqualified.
Between pure Motion, or Force, and qualified motion, or
Matter, stands Derived being, the Supreme Genus. Derived
being, therefore, is the intervening medium between Spirit

THE FORMING POWER. 73

and Matter that puts its own impression upon Matter; and
this, not volitionally but naturally.

REMARKS.

Unity being fundamental, therefore eternal, he who seeks
hidden mysteries can never find if he fails to discern and
follow it. To examine and pronounce upon any one factor out
of its relation to the Whole Creation is to limit both knowl-
edge and attainment, to make departments of knowledge
which appear to lead in contrary directions to diverse ends.

Good for a time, as expedient for the moment, any and
all departments may be, if the relation of one to the other,
and of all to the fundamental Unity, is not seen, the explana-
tion of Creation that makes wise self -adaptation possible, can
not be reached, and men will live and die as they need not
live and die did they seek wisdom rather than departmental
knowledge or denominational doctrine.

As a student you desire to know truth rather than to
vindicate opinion. Seek, therefore, to see and grasp the
Unity here outlined. See how one factor compels another,
how all are joined together as a series of consequences from
First Cause, a unity that is unassailable if this Cause be as
defined. Discerning it, turn where you will you will see it.
In every direction it will be manifest to you.

As beads upon a common thread all things now visible
and all that later become visible, all ologies and sciences, yes,
even all religions, will stand side by side together as belonging
to that unity that is more than any one of them.

QUESTIONS.

What are the logical essentials involved in the relation
between Creator and Creation?

What is the difference between forming and creating?

74 THE FORMING POWER.

Which is first in order of enumeration?

Is there any difference between creating and making?

If so, which is first, and which is subsequent?

Which of the two powers is the life-bestowing power?

Can the other power create a living being?

If not, why not?

What is the relation of the formed to the created?

What the relation of the made to the created?

Is there a power that lessens the Creative power in order
to sustain itself?

What is the difference between Matter and Shape?

What is the active aspect of the Genus, Man?

What does this Genus include?

What effect has this Genus upon Matter?

Is this effect volitional or natural?

CHAPTEK XVIH.
Kecapitulation.

The factors so far enumerated, with what they involve,
produce, in their combinations, all the problems of existence.
As links in a chain, no one link is capable of accomplishing
what their unity leads to and compels. This order is Nature,
or that which is natural; that which is compelled, not per-
mitted, by its Origin.

Nature, as this order, is, and must always remain, imper-
sonal. Well for us if we can " look from Nature up to
Nature's God." The impersonal order that is Nature is
Divine Necessity, the necessity by which the Onlooker is
bound. This necessity compels the road in which he must
travel as a seeker.

Before passing to the consideration of this Onlooker we
will reconsider these links in the chain of sequence, a recapitu-
lation that may be helpful to some and can be omitted by
those for whom it is unnecessary.

1. Substance. Mind.

2. Motion (not volitional). Action of Mind.

3. The being. The Ideal of Mind (with its

variety).

4. Activity of being (not volitional). The Forming Power.

5. Cosmic Matter. Common Background for, and

universal in,

6. The Formed. The World— Shape (with its

variety).

7. Purpose to which this unity tends. Incarnation.

75

REGAPITULA TION.

1. The impersonal God is the fixed point from which all
undamental factors follow in orderly sequence. God, to be
God, must be more than a being who feels conflicting emo-
tions and acts accordingly.

The God of Theology is a personal, a human-like being,
who feels both love and hate, who intentionally blesses and
curses, who exalts those whom He loves and casts down and
destroys those whom He hates; and He hates those who do
not see and obey Him as He wishes to be seen and obeyed.
He is a despot, a tyrant, executing his changeable will upon
mankind. No one can be sure that he is in favor with God,
sure that he is one of the elect who shall be saved from the
divine wrath.

Think a moment of what that means — divine wrath. Can
you see anything divine in wrath? Is there anything God-
like in it? Is not wrath a distinctively human characteristic,
seen in yourself and in your fellow-men?

Is there any certainty for you, for any one, any stability
in the universe, if its cause and sustainer is a being who can,
and at any moment may, change his mind, change his plans,
purposes, intentions, wishes? This kind of a being is not and
can not be absolute; for a God who wishes for anything what-
ever has not that for which he wishes; if he had he would
not wish. This is a limited, not the absolute, God.

Equally is this true if God forms any plan or intention,
making up His mind to do something, or produce something
which did not and could not exist till He made up His mind
to make it. In this view there is no room for co-existence,
for simultaneousness; and consequently no explanation of
Nature. It divorces God from Nature, making all things
subject to His caprice and permitting no stability.

Hence the age-long conflict between Science and Religion
— what has been called Eeligion. Science deals with Nature,

RECAPITULATION. 77

makes discoveries from the basis of facts. What has been
called Religion is offered as a divine revelation and a substi-
tute for facts. It too often contradicts them.

Scientists say " This is true, for we have discovered and
verified it." Religionists — theologians — say " That can not
be true, for divinely revealed Religion declares to the con-
trary." And the scientists are nearer to the discovery of the
real God than are the theological religionists, for they are
delving into Nature while the others stand afar off from her.
A revelation that can not reconcile Religion and Science,
Truth and Facts, is worth little.

The impersonal God as the governing Principle that com-
pels an orderly sequence of fundamental, therefore eternal,
factors, is to be found and known " by His works "; by find-
ing and knowing those factors and their consequences, and
their orderly relation to each other.

Which is the higher conception of God ? God as a mighty
and powerful being who loves and saves some, and hates and
destroys others; or, God as Love, as Principle that omnipo-
tent, unvarying Love that is alike for all men, the sun that
shines equally upon the just and the unjust?

With the theological conception of God no Science of
Being is possible. God's will determines everything and that
will may change at any moment. With the higher concep-
tion, God as Principle, the Science of Being is an accompany-
ing necessity, for it is the eternal certainty that the impersonal
compels by its nature.

As impersonal Principle, God is the same yesterday, to-
day, and forever. God is " without variation " or " shadow
of turning." Creation is according to the nature of God and
is, therefore, stable and sure. Discovery is all that is necessary
for ourselves, and we can make effort to this end, confident

78 RECAPITULATION.

that while we are seeking nothing will change and our time,
in consequence, be wasted.

This higher conception of God eliminates chance. There
is no chance. " If God should chance " to do thus and so,
or " If Nature should chance " to produce this or that, are
expressions of ignorance, not of knowledge. All that belongs
in the order that is the logical sequence of what God is as
Principle, is absolutely sure. The differing aspects of God
but help to reveal the allness of the Absolute One. Because
God is Spirit, Life, Love, Intelligence, Substance, Mind, the
rest follows. There can be no change in the sequence that
ensues.

2. The inseparability of Cause and its Action, of Sub-
stance and Motion, and also the distinction between them,
help, when discerned, to perception of what Creation is and
includes. This compelling Action is the Initial Impulse for
all that follows. It is God at work; jiot at work according
to His pleasure at the moment, but at work according to the
nature of God, and persistently.

The Original Motion is the " going forth to the outermost
ends of the earth." It is Force, the Force that compels and
impels all that lives and moves. The Force of Nature is God
at work, and is resistless. Nothing can stay it, everything
must eventually let it work onward.

God's will is the nature of God in operation, or active;
and that will is being done throughout Nature. God's will
never alters or varies, it is always the same; and God's pro-
ductions are equally changeless, as could not be the case if
the First Cause were other than impersonal Principle.

Pure Motion, that Action of Substance that is the opera-
tion of Cause, as the link between Cause and Effect is the
link between God and Man; a connection not permitted but
compelled.

RECAPITULATION. 79

3. The direct and all-inclusive Effect of that First Cause
that is God, is, in nature, according to, but not identical with,
the nature of God; and is relative or Derived. This Derived
being, Man, the Supreme Genus, or Ideal, is not a part of
God, but is the consequence of what God is and does; of
Substance and Motion.

This Man has no plural, there is but one Man as there is
but one God. This " image of God," as the full Expression
of all that God is and does, is all he can be. He can in no
way be bettered. In what he is, or in his nature, he can be
no more than he is primarily. All that is greater than he,
is the Absolute, or God. If he is all he can be, if he can not
be bettered, he is perfect and complete.

As the Expression of God, therefore, he is perfect, com-
plete, and contains within his own circumference all that in
any degree expresses First Cause. As the unit of Expression
all that is directly from that source must be in him. In him
is everything spiritual, outside him is nothing that is primarily
spiritual.

If everything in him is spiritual, what is from him must
have another name. What is from him can not be a part of
him, but a consequence, instead.

This Supreme Genus, Man, the Derived being, is not to
be created, for he already is. He is co-existent with God.
He is the eternal Ideal awaiting discovery and manifestation.
He is what God's nature compels and he does not exist by
permission.

4. Because Original Motion must be ceaseless as the
operation of Cause, the Supreme Genus can be no bar to its
further activity. Because this Force is impersonal it can not
cease of itself. There is no intention to act, there can be no
intention to cease acting.

80 RECAPITULATION.

As the Initial Impulse that brings, first, Derived being,
it must move on through this being to further production.
It must also communicate motion to this being, making it
active; an activity that is not, and can not be, volitional with
the Derived being, but is compelled by the relation between
Cause and Effect.

5. Matter is the qualified motion resulting from Motion
through Derived being. The difference between the Action
of Mind, or Spirit, and Matter is the difference between pure
Force and qualified motion, the Derived being constituting
the intervening or qualifying medium. Hence in the orderly
sequence that constitutes Nature, Matter is relative to De-
rived being, and Derived being is absolute to Matter; Derived
being is relative to God, and God is absolute to Derived being.
This order stands as follows:

God

Derived being

Matter

The Absolute

Relative to God and

Relative to Derived

absolute to Matter '

being.

This Ideal, or Supreme Genus, is not an integral part of
Matter, is not in Matter, but is veiled by Matter, hidden be-
hind it, beyond the possibility of destruction or even danger,
because of relation to Origin, or God.

Matter as the Reproduction in the order that constitutes
Nature, follows after the Production that is Expression of
God. It is not the living, substantial and intelligent in Nat-
ure; it stands before and hides that which is living, substan-
tial and intelligent. The Spiritual is the real and Matter is
the phenomenal. The real and the phenomenal never mingle,
each is perpetually distinct in Nature.

6. Because Motion through Derived being communicates
motion to that being, making it active, this activity, in con-

RECAPITULATION. 81

junction with Motion through the being, brings conjunctive
result. Conjunctive activities with conjunctive results,
though distinct, are inseparable, for if the one is, the other is
also.

The Creative Power and the Forming Power are the
greater and the lesser in Creation. The greater is the Initial
Impulse, and the lesser is the communicated impulse. Neither
is volitional, both are natural because compelled by Cause
and Effect.

The Creative Power produces living things and living
being, but the Forming Power can not produce them. It
can produce only the phenomenal, or Representation. Re-
production, or Cosmic Matter is but the universal background
for all shapes, it makes them visible.

A piece of glass is transparent. Looking in it you see
nothing. But when one side is covered by a metallic coating
shapes are seen. The coating is a background. Nature fur-
nishes, because it includes, the background which makes
shapes visible. Reproduction is the background and Repre-
sentation is what is seen by means of it.

The Material Whole, or unit, contains wide variety be-
cause the Spiritual Whole, or unit of Expression, contains
wide variety. All natures, all faculties, all powers, all that
expresses God even in the least degree, must be in, not out
of, the Expression or unit.

Many differing natures, all that pertain to the mineral,
vegetable and animal kingdoms, are in the composite nature
of the unit. Every faculty, capacity and power that is from
Mind, has place there also. As expressions of First Cause
they are all good and can not be bettered.

The Material Whole contains each and every shape repre-
sentative of those natures and of their quota of capacities and
powers.

82 RECAPITULATION.

The Spiritual Whole and the Material Whole are the
Number and Figure, the Noumenon and the Phenomenon.
But value belongs to Number, not to Figure. Figure only rep-
resents Number. The Spiritual is the real, or has value. The
Material represents value because it represents the Spiritual.
Hence the Figure indicates what it is not. It is only a means
for the finding of Number; the Phenomenon is but a
means by which the Onlooker in Nature may discover the
Noumenon.

The simultaneousness, or togetherativeness of these funda-
mental factors makes them coexistent with each other and
with First Cause, a necessity that makes a unity of God and
Nature. In this unity God is the governing Principle of the
orderly sequence of fixed and relative factors that constitutes
Nature, and is, in consequence, the Immanent God.

/ Between God and Nature no separation is possible — in
fact, whatever the theory — and separation between any of the
factors is equally impossible. Logical necessity keeps them
connected, the one with the other, but keeps each distinct
from the others, as well. God and Nature always were.
They constitute the abstract truth that always was and ever
will be.

God's will is done in the heaven that is Nature's inherent
harmony. " Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven."
If God and Nature are in everlasting unity, if Nature is fixed
and changeless, what is to come of it all? Manifestation is
to come. This " heaven " is to be made " plain, visible,
obvious to understanding." The abstract truth is to become
understood; the hidden real is to be made plainly visible.
The veil is to be lifted and the eternal is to appear in all its
power and majesty.

The third in the trinity — Expression, Representation and
Manifestation — is to follow the other two. But something

RECAPITULATION. 83

stands between. Before there can be recognition and under-
standing there must be a recognizer. /Before Manifestation
can follow, there must be something to receive it, something
to which the hidden real can appear; and our next step is to
pass to a consideration of the Onlooker in Nature.

CHAPTEK XIX.
The Onlooker in Nature.

It is self-evident that Manifestation is, and must be, a
matter of consciousness. " Obvious to understanding " im-
plies something capable of understanding; " plain, visible "
compels something capable of seeing, of recognition. The
one compels the other.

Although the Science of Numbers is exact and orderly
as abstract truth, and contains wide possibilities, this truth is
practically dead till brought to life by a seeker for it. It
has no established practical possibilities till it has been sought
and found; found both in theory and demonstration.

This truth is, in itself, but till it is manifested its nature
and possibilities are not proved. This proof, or manifestation,
is impossible except to something capable of recognition and
understanding.

A seeker is necessary. He stands between the invisible
real and its manifestation. The manifestation of the abstract
truth, the true in itself, is to him. This manifestation is not
the creating of anything new, it is the appearing of that which
always was ; but his impression will be " This is new " and
because what he sees is new to him.

The fixed order that constitutes Nature, though eternal in

itself because of its governing Principle, will be new to its

discoverer as it is first, and by successive steps, made manifest

to him; and manifestation must be, necessarily, a process to

84

THE ONLOOKER IN NATURE. 85

him, though what is manifested is a complete whole in itself,
all together " in the beginning " as eternal unity.

Seeing the necessity for another factor not yet enumerated
and defined, we must go back to our premise to discover it.

Being, or God Derived being

Absolute Consciousness Relative Conscious being

Non-entity Entity

Abstract Concrete

Universal or Omnipresent Individualized, as compared with the

Absolute.
Universal, as compared with the
Material Whole.

The Supreme Genus, Man, as the Expression of God is
the Entity of which God is the governing Principle. With-
out entity the Absolute could have no manifestation. With-
out the concrete the abstract could not appear.

The Entity, Derived being, the One as the Expression, is
relative to the Absolute, and absolute to the rest of the
sequence. As individualized conscious being, God alone, as
compelling Principle, greater than it, this entity is the
" image " of God. As " image " or Expression, it differs
from God, and yet it must have " likeness " to God.

As conscious being it must involve in its nature, self -con-
sciousness. Given conscious being, the power of self -recogni-
tion, or self -consciousness, is a logical necessity.

To be, is one thing; to know that you are, is another and
subsequent thing; and yet the second hinges upon the first.
Without the first the second could not be. Without a being,
no self is possible.

Without individuality there could be no recognition of
individual being. There could be no " I am " without being,
for from being this self -recognition springs.

86 TEE ONLOOKER IN NATURE.

One of the most important distinctions — and, for many,
the most difficult and obscure — to be made, for it is com-
pelled by the Science of Being, is this distinction, without
separation, between the being and the Soul. It constitute?
the difference between the " I " and its " Self."

Conscious being Soul, or self-consciousnesf? ^

Image of God Likeness of God

I I am

Self -recognition

>

An illustration will serve to make the meaning clearer.
An acorn is a complete and perfect whole, we will say. Be-
cause all that is requisite to the nature of the acorn is there,
it is perfect and complete and could not be bettered. Not
the most infinitesimal portion is lacking; if it were the acorn
could not be complete and perfect.

What does this perfection and completeness compel? It
compels that its " seed is in itself "; compels that a germ tree
is within it. Without this germ the acorn would not be com-
plete. Something necessary to perfection, as an acorn, would
be lacking. All the possibilities of the oak tree are enfolded
in the acorn. What the oak tree is abstractly, or by nature,
is contained in the acorn which is perfect as such.

But what is contained in the acorn are potentialities, not
actualities. These potentialities are realities, in that they are
exact and true according to the nature of the oak tree; but
while in the acorn only, they are not actualities. They must
come forth from the acorn, come into manifestation, before
the realities can become actualities.

This necessity is met by the nature of the acorn and soil
for planting. It holds within it the living germ that will
come forth as the actual tree. That which is in it belongs
to its nature. That which comes forth from it is the mani-
festation of its nature. The last is sequential to the first. The

THE ONLOOKER IN NATURE. 87

acorn is the " image " of the oak tree, the vital germ in it is
the " likeness " of the oak tree; and image and likeness con-
stitute a perfect whole.

Yet, something is lacking till that likeness has come forth
to manifestation. The actual tree must follow the ideal tree,
and the way from the ideal to the actual lies through the
potential. This is a perfect order in which the perfect acorn
has its own place. The acorn is not the order, it is an essential
factor in the order, and were the acorn not perfect, as such,
the order could not be fulfilled.

Conscious being is the acorn in which is involved, as
potentialities, all that God is. Derived conscious being is the
" image of God," the perfect entity in which are enfolded
all God-like possibilities. Because it is perfect and complete
the " likeness of God " pertains to its nature. Something
would be lacking were this not so.

In the image is the likeness; in conscious being is self-
consciousness or Soul; but this vital germ must come forth
from the acorn of being if this being's potentialities shall be-
come actualities. From the being shall come the actual; and
every factor in the order that constitutes Nature is necessary
to that end.

The Self of the I is the likeness of the Absolute. The
I is the image of the Absolute. The two are one, and that
one is the Expression of the Absolute, or God; the entity of
the Abstract or Principle.

Observe how we use the possessive pronoun in connection
with the word, "self." "Myself" we say. The possessive
pronoun denotes possession. If there is a possession there
must be the possessor. If the self is the possession, the in-
dividual possessor is " I." This possessor says " myself."

This factor in Nature, the Expression that is hidden be-
hind Reproduction and Representation, contains in its own

88 THE ONLOOKER IN NATURE.

nature God-potentialities and the germ of the Actual God.
Its seed is in itself.

In the order that constitutes Nature the Absolute God
is its beginning and governing Principle, the Potential God
is the immediate consequence of that Principle, and the
Actual God is the ultimate product. The Supreme Genus,
Man, the acorn, is the Entity involving the Potential God.
The Actual God is to come from that Entity and its begin-
nings are there as the germ in the acorn, the Self in the I.

This inherent " likeness " is to come forth from that which
is veiled by Matter till it stands complete in Incarnation, as
the Manifestation that completes Creation. The inherent is
to become the actual, and from the basis of Nature, not by
miracle; a becoming, or making, according to law and order
that is the fulfilment of the law and order.

Having discovered inherent Soul our next step is existent
soul.

" Ex — out of, or from."

The germ tree in the acorn must become ex-istent, must
come forth from the acorn. Here is the growth that may be
called change.

Eorce, Derived being, the Forming power, Reproduction
and Representation, all the fundamental factors, are fixed
and changeless. They never become, because originally they
are all they can be. The stability of Nature is assured.
Equally is this true of Soul. As it is, it is all it can be. As
Soul, the likeness of the Absolute, it can be no more; but
in manifestation, or existent, it becomes more and more till
the manifestation is all it can be. And there can be no mani-
festation except the inherent become the existent.

The existent soul is the Onlooker in Nature, the Onlooker
with capacity for discovery of all that Nature includes.

Though the acorn includes the vital germ, there must be

THE ONLOOKER IN NATURE. 89

germination before the potential can become the actual; be-
fore the complete oak tree can stand forth as manifestation
of the nature of the acorn. Though Derived being includes
Soul, there must be germination before Creation is finished,
for Manifestation is necessary to the completion.

From the Absolute, through the Potential, to the Actual,
is the inevitable order compelled by the nature of the gov-
erning Principle; and germination is a logical necessity.
This germination and growth is human existence, that which
is " ex — out of, or from" the changeless and eternal; and
human existence is the evolution of self-consciousness. Evo-
lution is change, not change in what is fundamental, but
change in its manifestation.

As a help toward understanding this argument the capital
letter will be used when inherent Soul is mentioned, and the
small letter when existent soul is meant.

Inherent Soul, as the Likeness of the Absolute, is change-
less, and all it can be. Existent soul becomes more and more
till it has become all it can be.

Holding fast to this distinction between " image " and
" likeness," or between Derived being and Soul, and also to
the distinction between inherent Soul and existent soul, we
may find the place of the existent soul in the order that con-
stitutes Nature.

Reproduction
Derived being— Soul Representation Manifestation

I, and its Self Matter Existent soul

Image and Likeness Shape I am

Man Person A man

A man, is what we call a human being. Subjectively he
is a living, or an existent soul; objectively he is an outlined
shape or person. Subjectively he is from being, objectively
he is of Matter. He is the conjunction of existent soul,

90 THE ONLOOKER IN NATURE.

Matter and Shape. Outwardly lie is Nature's phenomenon,
inwardly he is the first fruit of germination, the first shoot
from the acorn of being.

A man is living in soul, and phenomenal in appearance
or Person. As the first shoot from the acorn, as a living soul,
he is connected with being. He is in conjunction with Matter
but is not vitally connected with it. His vital connection is
with Derived being and its governing Principle. A man
lives from being and from God, not from Matter, but looks
upon and sees Matter and its various Shapes because in con-
junction with them. The soul of a man is the Onlooker.
The person of a man, the matter of a man, can be, neither
of them, the Onlooker.

QUESTIONS.

Is manifestation independent of consciousness?

Can anything be old and new at the same time?

Is manifestation at once complete, or is it progressive?

Why?

What is the difference between " abstract " and " con-
crete " ?

What is the difference between " universal " and " indi-
vidualized " ?

Has the abstract a need for the concrete? If so, what is
the need?

What is necessarily included in conscious being?
- What is the " I " ?
f What is the " Self " ?
,' What is the relation of one to the other?

Are they separate from each other?

What is the difference between being and Soul?

THE ONLOOKER IN NATURE. 91

Which is first, to be, or to know that we are?

If the Actual is the end of an order, what must precede
the Actual?

Are the Ideal and the Actual, the same?

What is inherent in the acorn of Derived being?

Is existence from Derived being logically compelled?

Where must we look for the Likeness of the Absolute?

What is the difference, if any, between " the image of
God " and " the likeness of God " ?

If there is difference between them, is there any sepa-
ration?

What is the " seed " in Derived being?

What is the difference between " potential " and
" actual " ?

Do any of Nature's fundamental factors, change?

Where, in any one of them, do you find something to be-
come existent?

Will the existent soul naturally increase and multiply, or
remain stationary?

Is there need for a becoming, except in existence?

What is necessary to complete Creation?

What is human existence?

What is evolution?

What is the composition of " a man " ?

What is the relation of " a man " to Derived being?

What the relation to Matter?

What is the destiny of " a man " ?

CHAPTEE XX.
Existence.

Having traced the Plan and discovered the Builder it re-
mains to follow the building.

" For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid."

The eternal foundation, the one that is already laid, is
the sequence and relativity of the fixed factors compelled by
the nature of their governing Principle. No one can change
it or substitute for it, another. Any and all can build upon
it, and human existence is the process of building upon the
eternal foundation; a process interfered with for a time by
attempts to build upon other than the eternal.

The existent soul as the Builder finds in its own existence
the material for building, has the power to discard one ma-
terial for another and a better.

Existence is within, not outside of, eternity. It begins
with the first shoot from the acorn of being and ends only
with the full-grown tree. It is a line within a circle, the
temporal bounded by the eternal.

That which is out of or from the eternal is to find the
eternal, find both its own foundation and height. Existence
is in time, for time is but the work of building. That which
is out of or from the eternal perfect acorn will increase, or
grow in time, till it has become all the nature of the acorn
compels.

We measure time according to a commonly accepted

standard of measurement, but time is the measure of existence

itself, and the true standard is the nature of Derived being.

92

EXISTENCE. 93

If the factors enumerated constitute the eternal founda-
tion, if Manifestation, full and complete, is the ultimate
consequence, the beginning of Manifestation is the first step
to that end, the first stage of time.

If the existent soul is the Onlooker that is also the Builder,
the first stage in Manifestation is a state of self -consciousness,
and subsequent stages must be subsequent states of self-
consciousness.

The first shoot from the acorn is the first stage of a
process that must include other and subsequent stages before
it can be complete, all of them consequent upon the nature
of the acorn. All states of the existent soul subsequent to
and following upon the first, must be consequent upon the
nature of Derived being — the Genus, Man.

Variety is compelled, the states will differ from each
other; but the unity of the factors constituting the eternal
foundation will compel between these states the unity that is
their logical relatedness.

Any one state of existence must be related to what pre-
cedes and succeeds it, a relativity compelled, not permitted.
As beads upon a thread, these states from least to greatest
must be penetrated by the thread of law and order upon
which they are strung.

Existence has a definite purpose, therefore, that tends ever
to fulfilment, and if the Builder have a contrary purpose it
can be but the temporal which is eventually overruled by the
Great Purpose. As existence, because of its nature, can not
cease till the Great Purpose is fulfilled, if the Builder work
according to another and contrary purpose there must be
" turning and overturning " till it is abandoned and the true
one found and followed.

Incarnation being the aim of existence, and incarnation
of God the Great Purpose, each state in the process that is

94 EXISTENCE.

Existence will have its own incarnation, and the first stage
of Manifestation will be the incarnation of the first shoot
from the acorn of being — a man. A man is not and can not
be The Man, they stand to each other as a species to the
Genus. For the Genus there is no plural, the indefinite
article " a " or " an " is not applicable. A man is one of a
number, more than one species is not only possible but com-
pelled by the nature of The Man.

A species is a kind after and according to the Genus, and
many kinds are necessary to the orderly manifestation of the
full possibilities of the Genus. Hence mankind is legitimate
successor to The Man, and the means by which the nature
of Derived being is manifested.

Between The Man as Ideal, and The Man as Actual,
stand all kinds of men, these kinds belonging in time and
having orderly relation to each other, each and all manifest-
ing the potentialities of Derived being. JSTo one of these
kinds is, or can be, either the Ideal or the Actual. The Ideal
precedes Existence, the Actual is the crown of Existence.

Existence is from the Ideal to the Actual, from the unin-
carnated to the incarnated. Between the two stretches the
Existence that brings the one from the other. Existence
therefore is natural, not volitional. Existence in time is con-
sequent upon the eternal order that constitutes Nature. Ex-
istence and time are relative to the eternal, and the eternal
is absolute to Existence and time.

The eternal foundation, when discovered, answers the
question " What am I, and why am I here? " Till it is dis-
covered the question is not answered truly, even if answered
satisfactorily to the questioner. The questioner is a man, the.
incarnation in Person of a state of self -consciousness; a state
consequent upon the nature of Derived being.

EXISTENCE. 95

QUESTIONS.

What is the eternal Plan?

What is the Builder?

What is the building, or the work to be done?

What is the Builded, or finished work?

Is existence within, or outside of, eternity?

What is the true standard of time?

What constitutes the eternal foundation?

What is the ultimate consequence of existence?

Is self -consciousness one state, or many?

If it has many states, are these separate from each other?

Does Nature provide for Incarnation?

Is Incarnation a consequence logically traceable from
First Cause?

Is variety in Incarnation compelled by fundamental
factors ?

Is an incarnation necessarily the fullest possible, and most
complete, Incarnation?

Can a man, as the first shoot from Derived being, be more
than the incarnation of some of the potentialities of being?

If not, does a man become more and more, or less and less?

Is a first, or a natural, man, the full Manifestation?

If not, is he necessarv to the full Manifestation?

What is the difference between a man and the Man?

Are varying species legitimate to a Genus?

Does a man exist in time and space because he chose to
so exist?

Is he a natural, or a volitionally intended, product?

Can a personal choice usurp, ever, the place of impersonal
law and order?

CHAPTEK XXI.
The Composition of a Man.

A man is a compound. "Objectively he is Person and
Matter, subjectively he is a living soul. As the first shoot
from the acorn he is neither the acorn nor the full-grown
tree. He is neither the Ideal that forever is, nor the Actual
that shall be. He is the promise, the evidence that the eternal
Ideal is and the complete Actual shall be, he is a link be-
tween the two. He is a kind according to Man, a species to
be followed by a higher species, this higher by a still higher
till the highest species possible appears. He belongs to time,
not to eternity.

As a whole he is mortal. The composition that is a man
can not last forever because of the necessity for further
growth from the acorn of being. He is the consequence of,
and is related to, all the factors that in their unity constitute
Nature and its governing Principle. But he is not the greatest
possible consequence. A greater than he must come after
him. He is an incarnation of the possibilities of the Genus,
he is not the Incarnation of the full nature and possibilities
of the Genus.

As the consequence of Nature and its governing Principle
he is furnished with all that Nature includes. All is laid at
his feet for his use. What will he do with it ?

As a compound of existent soul, Shape and Matter, the

personal pronoun " he " applies more properly to the greatest

of the three. As Shape or Person is but the limited result

96

THE COMPOSITION OF A MAN. 97

of the activity of Derived being, and as Matter is but the
qualified motion that affords a background for Shape, the ex-
istent soul connected with them must be the factor in this
compound most entitled to the pronoun.

He, therefore, is more than his Person or the material in
it, for he grows from Derived being and has a destiny to
fulfil. He is a soul having a body, this body outlined by
Shape and consisting of Cosmic Matter, till something more
has been added to it.

QUESTIONS.

What is the difference between " a man " and " the
Man " ?

Of what is " a man " composed?

What is " a man's " relation to Derived being?

Is " a man " capable of improvement? If so, why?

Does the perpetuity of a natural composition constitute
immortality?

What is the difference between " an incarnation " and
" the Incarnation " ?

What belongs to " a man " through his relation to Nature?
Which of the factors composing " a man " is dominant,
by right, over the others?

Are the factors composing " a man " eternal or temporal?

CHAPTER XXII.
Body.

If Cosmic Matter is the background for Shape, as much
Cosmic Matter as is included within outline constitutes the
Nature-Body, and the Nature-Body must be simultaneous
with all the factors of the eternal order. In consequence,
this Nature-Body awaits the existent soul, it is not made in
time, is not the consequence of experience. It is compelled
by the order which the soul is to find and follow, is for the
soul's use in existence.

Body must be considered under- the head of genus and
species. Body is fundamental in Creation. Argument from
the premise given brings us to Body as a logical consequence
of the factors preceding it in the order of enumeration. The
seventh factor — Incarnation — is Body, original genus.

Each genus must have its own species, and bodies of vary-
ing kinds will follow the original genus.

From impersonal Principle to Person with Body is an un-
broken continuity; and this Nature-Body constitutes the
natural means for Embodiment. The Nature-Body is the
receptacle in which is embodied whatever is contained in
the soul connected with it.

A species — a kind of man, will have embodiment in the

Nature-Body. Hence if progress of the existent soul is the

process compelled by governing Principle, this progress must

be registered in embodiment. Change in embodiment is thus

98

BODY. 99

compelled, and without change in the Nature-Body that is its
receptacle.

In our attempt to follow the Science of Being we must
never lose sight of genus and species, the original and the
subsequent, at any stage of the argument, otherwise we can
not work to a logical conclusion; and without logical deduc-
tions leading to logical conclusion we can have no science
capable of proof through demonstration. The solution of all
problems is obtained by following their principle.

Once more let us follow the order:

1. Substance. Mind.

2. Motion (not volitional). Action of Mind.

3. The Derived being. The Ideal of Mind.

4. Activity of being (not volitional). The Forming Power.

5. Cosmic Matter. Common Background for and

universal in

6. The Formed. The World or Shape (with its

variety).

7. Body. Incarnation.

Kesult — Full Manifestation. The Absolute, Embodied ; or the
Actual God. The Divine Incarnation.

Existence begins at Incarnation and the existent soul is
incarnated or provided by Nature with the Body in which it
makes its own body.

The Nature-Body being fundamental or original can not
change, therefore all change must be in embodiment. All
change in embodiment will depend upon change in soul or
self-consciousness. Each state of self-consciousness, each ad-
vance of soul, will have embodiment. As one state or stage
follows another, embodiment must change, and by displace-
ment, this change bringing, finally, the perfected embodiment
of the Actual Man.

To existence belong, then, differing bodies, all of them

L.ofC.

100 BODY.

embodiments in the Nature-Body, with quality according to
the status of the existent soul. Hence existence can end only
with the highest possible embodiment, which oversteps the
line between the temporal and the eternal, time and eternity,
becoming perpetual.

" There is a natural body and a spiritual body. Howbeit
that is not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural."

At the beginning of the enumeration of eternal factors
stands the Absolute; at the end, Incarnation. Existence
beginning, therefore, with Incarnation, it is a soul that is
incarnated and embodied. But, as the continuation of Crea-
tion, this soul incarnates and embodies. The work of Creation
as a whole does not cease at the beginning of Existence.

The impersonal part of it has brought the stage where the
personal part begins, and the personal part is necessary to the
completion of Creation, to the finishing that is the highest
embodiment. For the crown of Creation is the Divine In-
carnation and Embodiment, the Personal God.

REMARKS.

At this stage of the argument you are wondering, doubt-
less, about the flesh-body you have at present, whether it be
the ISFature-body or no. If you are not thus wondering,
pardon the implication; if you are, endeavor to discern be-
tween what lies at the threshold of existence ready waiting
for the existent soul, and what is made in existence.

Imagine a circle within which, at every point, because
universally diffused, Cosmic Matter belongs. Then see an
outlined shape drawn in the circle. Within this outline
Cosmic Matter must be found because it is universal, or
omnipresent within the circumference of the circle. The
Cosmic Matter within the outline is but a portion of the same

BODY. m

Cosmic Matter that is outside the outline, but that which is
within the shape is the Body defined by outline.

The flesh-body you have now is not this Nature-Body, it
is an embodiment in that Body; but to understand varying
embodiments and the necessity for them you must grasp, first,
the idea set forth in this chapter.

There can be no embodiments without a receptacle for
them. The Impersonal Order that constitutes Nature pro-
vides the receptacle and works for embodiment, a work
shared by the existent soul that ignorantly or wisely makes
its own body, the body that is made in the receptacle provided.

QUESTIONS.

What is the difference between " Body " and " a body " ?
What is the difference between " Body " and " Embodi-
ment " ?

What is the difference between " at the foundation of
existence " and " in existence " ?

Has the Nature-Body, quality?

Can the Nature-Body be estimated according to our
standards of weight and measurement?

Is what you see when you look in a mirror, the Nature-
Body?

What office in Creation is filled by the Nature-Body?

Is the Nature-Body temporal or eternal?

Is an embodiment temporal or eternal?

What is the relation of the Nature-Body to the existent
soul?

Is the Nature-Body the product of the existent soul's vo-
litional action?

Is any kind of a body the product of such action?

102 BODY.

Is there separation between a soul and its body?

What is the relation of a soul's Person to its body?

Can a soul have more than one body?

Is one body dropped, and another taken on?

If so, whence comes the body taken on?

If the principle of continuity obtains in Creation, does it
not apply to Embodiment?

If so, what does this principle compel?

CHAPTER XXIH.

Envikonment.

An existent soul is surrounded by a world of shapes. The
composite nature of Derived being compels variety of repre-
sentatives or shapes.

Because each unit contains its own fractions — Expression
and Representation — each fraction in Representation will be
allied to its corresponding fraction in Expression. A nature
that is an expression of First Cause will have its appropriate
person or shape in the "World.

These shapes must range from least to greatest according
to the natures they represent. One expression of First Cause
can be greater or less than another, but all belong in the Unit
and are less than the Unit. Not only must each fraction in
Expression have its representative person or shape, but the
Unit must have its Person or Shape.

There must be the one above all others, the Human, that
stands for and represents the Unit, the one-ness of parts. The
existent soul having this highest shape, the Human Person,
will look upon, therefore will seem surrounded by, the whole
range of lesser shapes as an environing World.

Each shape belonging to an environing World is the out-
line of the Nature-body belonging to the fraction of Expres-
sion represented. A nature in the Genus has its person and
body, all natures less than the whole have their persons and
bodies — their incarnations. The law for the whole must be

equally the law for the part.

103

104 ENVIRONMENT.

The existent soul, having its Person and Nature-Body, is
surrounded by the differing natures belonging to the com-
posite Genus, all of them incarnated as it is incarnated. It
is the Onlooker, they are the things seen.

The number and variety of incarnated things must depend
upon the variety in the primal Genus. Whatever the variety
there must be unity, the relation of the part to the whole
compels.

Existence and Environment belong together and are mu-
tually dependent. For an Onlooker there is something to
see, and Nature produces natural environment for the existent
soul — a garden of Eden. But what it sees in its environment
is a subsequent matter, quite " another story " indeed. Eirst,
environment as it is in itself, afterward what is seen in en-
vironment by the existent soul.

Variety is seen because it is fundamental and natural.
Variety rouses in the soul a sense of contrast, which distin-
guishes between shapes and leads to a conclusion about them.

QUESTIONS.

Of what is "Environment" composed?

What is it that is environed?

Why is there variety in Environment?

Is anything beside the existent soul, incarnated? If so,
what and why?

Has anything beside the existent soul, body? If so, why?

If there are many objects in Environment is there con-
nection or separation between them?

In either case, why?

In the World, which is the Onlooker, and which the things
seen?

ENVIRONMENT. 105

What is the relation between that which sees, and the
seen?

To which must the fundamental power of dominion be-
long? To the things seen or to the Onlooker?

Is this power granted as a favor by the Almighty, or is
it according to Nature?

CHAPTER XXIV.
The Influence of Envieonment.

The environed soul is to distinguish and conclude. As
the Onlooker it sees, or looks upon, objects, and afterward
renders judgment upon what it sees. To the Onlooker per-
tains a possibility found nowhere else — it may mistake.

No factor in the impersonal order can make a mistake,
the governing Principle can not mistake, neither Matter nor
Shape can mistake. To the chief factor in the personal order,
the existent soul, pertains this possibility. As no mistake or
irregularity is possible in the eternal foundation, the Builder
alone can do that which has not previously been done, make
that which has no existence till he makes it.

Environed by a world that offers variety and provokes
contrast, his judgment of what he sees may be contrary to
the true nature of the environment. If so, he will embody
his mistake and not the truth of his being. He will build
his error and its consequences into the natural incarnation.

Only the factor capable of discernment, of seeing through
the phenomenal as well as looking upon it, can mis-take and
believe that its judgment is true while it is contrary to the
truth. This can occur while the faculty of discernment is
in abeyance. Only such capability admits of falling short
of it and " missing the mark " in conclusion. There can be
no belief without a believer. The believer must be the On-
looker, not the thing seen, and before the Onlooker has be-
come the Discerner.

106

THE INFLUENCE OF ENVIRONMENT. 10?

Environment makes impression upon the soul, the soul
concludes according to impression. Impression from environ-
ment is natural, not volitional, conclusion is first natural, not
intentional. Impression is the action followed by the reaction
of conclusion, and this give and take must continue through
existence, preceding the embodiment of the conclusion, and
constituting the building material.

Soul-embodiment according to soul-quality must proceed
according to law and order. Soul-quality must be according
to dominant impression and conclusion, and natural impres-
sion and natural conclusion must rule till a subsequent and
higher takes their place.

, Existence for the soul is its growth from natural to per-
fected incarnation and embodiment. Existence to the soul
is a series of experiences whereby it discovers its natural mis-
take, the hidden truth, and demonstrates the power of the
truth by victory over the consequences of the error. In this
process the error first embodied must become disembodied,
and the truth of being embodied in its place.

REMARKS.

" But how can the existent soul make a mistake if it is
of God? " do you ask? Here is the stumbling block for many,
because of the old idea of God. This idea has been foundation
for the conclusion " If the soul is the likeness of God it can
not do wrong"; and "wrong" in the ethical sense is what
is meant.

Whereas mis-taking, as here defined, is not wrong in the
ethical, only in the natural, sense. It is consequence of un-
development in existence of the capacity that, when developed,
will prevent it; that is all. There is nothing wicked or
immoral about this mis-taking. It is natural consequence,

108 THE INFLUENCE OF ENVIRONMENT.

nothing else. Not till the soul through attained knowledge
discovers what it is at first ignorant of, and then chooses to
continue to mis-take, is its act wrong in the ethical sense.
Hold fast to the difference between natural consequence and
intentional doing.

QUESTIONS.

Enumerate the impersonal order and name its last factor;
then name the first factor of the personal order.

Which of these can mis-take?

To which belongs the power of judging the rest?

What is error and where does it originate?

Does a mis-taking change the fundamental nature of the
mis-taker?

Will the mistake or error affect embodiment?

Will it affect, or change, the Nature-Body?

To what is impression upon the Onlooker, due?

Is there any error in natural Environment — in the World
as it is by Nature?

Is it wrong, or natural, that the existent soul is im-
pressible?

If natural, can the existent soul destroy its own im-
pressibility?

What is necessary in order to remove a mistake?
Can the Onlooker become the Discoverer?
What are the action and reaction in the personal order?
What is the building material used by the Builder in the
making of embodiment?

Is this material necessary for the Nature-Body?

THE INFLUENCE OF ENVIRONMENT. 109

If living soul is self-consciousness, what gives quality to
self -consciousness ?

Which is first in Creation, the unqualified self-conscious-
ness or the qualified?

Does a quality of soul precede, or belong to, Existence and
Environment ?

What is Existence for the soul?

What is Existence to the soul?

CHAPTER XXV.

Susceptibility to Impbession.

Consequence of
The being ^^^^s^^^-^ Existent Soul The World impression

I am Person I am this

Person I see

The shoot from the acorn of being looks out from the
being, consequently away from it. The existent soul looking
away from the being naturally, looks upon its environment
as naturally. This is no mistake or error. Like a mirror the
soul reflects impression. This susceptibility is due to its nat-
ure. Without it there would be no subsequent Divine In-
carnation, no previous embodiment in the natural incarnation.

While the Soul, because of its origin and subjective rela-
tions, can never change to something different, while it will
always be Soul, as a kind of soul its quality will be according
to the ruling impression; or, self -consciousness is qualified by
impression.

If the impression is " I am this object I see," then, ac-
cording to this sense of self a man is a material object in
space. This sense, with all it includes and engenders, is built
into the natural incarnation, or Nature-Body, and gives em-
bodiment.

The soul, though heir "of all the ages," heir to eternal

life, has fallen, through its sense-impression, into a temporal

life and will need a resurrection; for as this sense is not truth

but is contrary to truth, it can not be eternal.

As the soul becomes, or is qualified, according to its ruling

110

SUSCEPTIBILITY TO IMPRESSION. Ill

sense — is that sense, practically — it must experience death to
know life. Its mistaken, therefore temporal, sense of self
must die, another and higher sense of self must take its place,
and the soul be thus brought forward in its career.

The process of Creation thus far is natural at every step,
the " fall " of a man is natural and not intentional. He is
not to blame, morally, for his sense of self and its conse-
quences. The law of Cause and Effect brings all.

Is a man therefore helpless? Is he so bound by natural
results of naturally operative causes that he can not help but
passively reflect and embody a mistaken sense of self? This
question must be answered from a further consideration of
the nature of the Derived being with which the soul is in
connection all the while it looks upon environment.

So far there has been no conscious exercise of volition,
yet if there be none the existent soul can have no control over
impressions and must remain what it is according to its natural
sense of self. A poor outlook, truly, if this is all.

QUESTIONS.

Why does not the existent soul at once see its true being?
Is any one, or any thing, to blame because it does not
see, at the threshold of existence, its real eternal being?

Would you change, if you could, what is natural ? what is
according to the sequence of cause and effect?

Do you think you could improve upon Nature if you had
your way?

To what is the soul related, subjectively and objectively?

What is the living or existent soul?

Can it change itself, or be changed, to something that
is not soul?

112 SUSCEPTIBILITY TO IMPRESSION.

Can it be qualified? If so, how?

Is a sense of self natural to " a man " ? If so, why?

What becomes of the sense of self?

Is a sense of self temporal or eternal?

Can a sense of self, change?

Can there be a better than the natural sense of self?

What do you understand by " the fall of man " ?

Is one to blame, morally, for a mistaken conclusion as to
what one is?

Is one worthy of " everlasting torment " because of what
he does naturally, or without intention?

Which is first in the eternal order? The natural or the
spiritual?

CHAPTER XXVI.
The Composite Nature of Derived Being.

As the

Spiritual

Living

Loving

Intelligent

Substantial

Idea of Infinite Mind,
all God-likeness pertains to this Derived being. Its faculties
must be expressions of Mind, the varying natures within it
must be living, not dead. Every nature, capacity and power
must be not only living, but perpetual, because they are the
effects of First Cause, expressing it and sustained by it.

But though living subjectively, the faculties and powers
are not existent in time and space except by means of the
existent soul. They must flow down, as it were, into the ex-
istent soul, thereby becoming actively existent, before they
can be incarnated and embodied. By means of the existent
soul they come to incarnation and embodiment, a coming
which must be orderly and gradual.

Hence, the existent soul must be the user of the faculties
and powers of being. It follows that there must be some-
thing to call forth their use, to draw them into existence, and
through active existence to incarnation and embodiment.
Demand upon them is essential and the consequences of natu-
ral impression lead to this demand.

113

114 THE COMPOSITE NATURE OF DERIVED BEING.

Existence and the experiences of existence consist in the
educing, the drawing forth to manifestation, all that is con-
tained in and belongs to Derived being — the Image and
Likeness of God. Without existence there can be no mani-
festation.

Development of the soul, of self-consciousness, as the
purpose to be carried out, compels the activity in existence
of all that pertains to the being; a necessity compelling order
in existence. One by one the natures contained in the unit —
Expression — appear, each through its representative person,
until the whole in turn appears through its Person. One by
one the faculties of being are brought to bear upon what is
offered by Nature and governing Principle. All is first looked
upon, then seen through, then understood; then realization
of the nature of phenomena and noumena, their relation and
principle, leads to the positive knowing that is perpetual.

Assuming that Mind is the beginning of all things, itself
no thing, let us trace the composite nature of the Expression.

Mind'

To look upon

To see through ^

To understand >^»

To know >^

The Unit— Man.

Mineral ^"V^

Vegetable ^s^

Animal ^^

Hui

nan

We will classify the natures in the Genus, Man, as

1. The Mineral.

2. The Vegetable.

3. The Animal.

THE COMPOSITE NATURE OF DERIVED BEING. 115

4. The Human.
And the faculties as

1. The Power to Know.

2. The Power to Understand.

3. The Power to See through.

4. The Power to Look upon.

The sum of these natures and faculties is Man, the
Expression, the Ideal that is to be made Actual through Ex-
istence, Incarnation, and Embodiment. In this Man is Soul,
or Self, the Likeness of God. The Actual Man is to follow
the Ideal Man by the existence, incarnation and embodiment
of the Soul.

All these natures and faculties contained in composite
changeless being are eternal. Each, and all, is sustained by
and from the Absolute Source through the relation between
Cause and Effect. Eternal in being, existent in time, em-
bodied in time, and brought by embodiment out of time as
the eternal incarnation, is the order compelled by governing
Principle; is the Great Purpose to be fulfilled.

Species upon species incarnating and embodying the dif-
fering natures and faculties is the consequence, ascending
species from lowest to highest. They are to be looked upon,
seen through, understood, and truly known by the one species
capable of knowing that he knows — the human species. They
are to be seen and known by each other according to capacity
for knowing.

Not only must the differing natures and faculties belong
to being but the senses also. All is there, all is to come from
thence into existence. With the existent soul at the begin-
ning of Existence is found the senses. It says " I see," " I
hear," " I taste," " I smell," " I touch." Subsistent in being,
existent in time and space with a soul, they are the avenues
through which a soul receives impression. What is seen,

116 THE COMPOSITE NATURE OF DERIVED BEING.

heard, tasted, smelled, and touched by the soul is stored up
as its experiences, for they are the sum of its impressions.
What is sensed constitutes the existent soul's first knowledge,
a natural knowledge.

All natures, faculties, powers and senses belonging to
being, becoming existent with the soul are operative in the
soul in the order from least to highest. The descent from
being and the ascent of the soul are equal. The one regulates
the other.

Their operation in the existent soul brings this soul from
the infancy of existence to its manhood or maturity, and by
a gradation according to the nature of being.

What existence is in itself, is, from beginning to end,
numerically exact. Its beginning, end, and intervening
stages, can be counted upon with certainty. " Order is
heaven's first law." To a soul, existence is necessarily com-
posite, and bewildering when seen only through the senses.
To see, hear, etc., is a natural beginning, but only as the
faculties are brought to bear upon what is sensed, can true
knowledge follow and the soul ascend.

From the natural level of the senses, up the mountains
of the faculties to the higher levels of realization of the
eternal, must the soul travel to its Origin.

The nature of being compels the nature and order of Ex-
istence. Derived being is what it is through the relation of
Effect to Cause. What First Cause is, as governing Prin-
ciple, determines all the rest. From beginning to end all is
Good. At no point is there room for evil, for Good is omni-
present. From impersonal Principle through natural sequence
and order to the fulfilment of Law, all is Good, and Good
only.

THE COMPOSITE NATURE OF DERIVED BEING. 117

QUESTIONS.

Why is Derived being composite in nature?

What is the source of the faculties and powers of being?

Are the parts of that Whole — Derived being — temporal
or eternal?

How do the faculties of being become active in time and
space ?

How do the faculties and powers of being become ex-
istent ?

Can they have embodiment without first becoming ex-
istent?

What is it that uses the powers belonging to being?
How is their activity in existence stimulated?
In what does the soul's education consist?
Upon what is Manifestation dependent?
Why is Manifestation dependent upon anything?
Why is Manifestation orderly?

Can you name the faculties of being in their order from
least to highest?

Can you name the differing natures in being in their order
from least to highest?

How will you name the Sum, or entity, of the natures,
faculties and powers of being?

What is the difference between the Ideal Man and the
Actual Man?

How is the Actual Man, made?

Beside natures, faculties and powers, what belongs to the
Ideal Man?

What is the " Likeness of God " ?

118 THE COMPOSITE NATURE OF DERIVED BEING.

Why are there differing species in existence?

What is to deal with these species, and how?

Where do the five senses naturally belong?

Where are they naturally active?

What is their relation to the soul?

What is the result to the soul of their activity?

How does the existent soul first gain knowledge?

What constitutes the ascent of the soul?

Is this ascent governed by law?

If so, is it good, or evil?

CHAPTEE XXVn.

Mortal Sense.

According to the argument the term " material senses "
is a misnomer. Matter can have no senses, Person can have
no senses or faculties. Derived being has all, and all precede
existence. Derived being, as the Created, is and has all that
is directly from First Cause. Existence is only the appearing
that is the gradual manifestation of the eternal.

We will call this being the Lord of Existence, because
nothing that the soul sees as change during existence can alter
or affect the changeless being. We can imagine this being
as saying " I am the Lord that changeth not." All that be-
longs to it, as naturally inherent, must be eternal. The senses
belong to it and are perpetual.

But there may pertain to the existent soul that which,
though natural, is not eternal but temporal; that which per-
tains to its infancy and will be, therefore, outgrown and left
behind in its further progress. The infant soul, the infancy
of existence, may have — will have, its own sense about what
it is; and its own sense of what it is will be opposite to the
truth of its being. Its own sense however will be natural
and not intentional; neither can it be one of the five senses
belonging to being.

The intentional presupposes a choice as to what is done

and what left undone. There is no practical choice for the

soul as to how it first views itself, existence, and environment,

though there is potential power of choice.

119

120 MORTAL SENSE.

Because the senses of being are operative in the soul, be-
cause they are the avenues through which impression is re-
ceived, because a soul sees, hears and touches, that which
Nature has placed with it, before it, and around it as its own
Person and Environment is what it sees and touches; and its
response to the impression is " This is I and I am a material
being, part of the material world in which I am."

This sense of self, naturally, not intentionally opposed to
the truth of being, is a mortal sense, one that can come to an
end; whereas all that constitutes being is eternal.

The Truth of being A Sense of being

What being is as the Unit How a man seems to himself

Eternal The first sense, Natural and Mortal

The subsequent sense, Possible and Eternal

Between the natural mortal sense, and the subsequent
eternal sense of being, stand the faculties with their orderly
operation. This operation displaces the 'mortal ignorant sense
with the true enlightened sense.

The first shoot from the acorn of being, looking out from,
therefore away from, the acorn, sees only what it looks upon;
and this looking upon what belongs under the head of Repre-
sentation is natural. It is the sequence of cause and effect.

The shoot forms its own idea of what it is, and according
to the way it sees itself. Back in the acorn are the faculties
that will enable it to form the true idea, but it is not natural
that the true idea shall be formed till they operate in their
order.

Previous to the true idea of self that is possible, is the
first that is natural, and in accord with the limited sense that
accompanies the little shoot. This first sense is mortal be-
cause it can come to an end; will come to an end as further

MORTAL SENSE. 121

growth from the acorn brings forth more and more the tree
that shall be.

The existent soul's natural, but mortal, sense of existence
and environment is a sense about the phenomenal that will
be outgrown, overcome, because it will be come over by the
soul as its growth in existence goes on.

In existence mortal sense plays an important part. Though
mortal, this sense first colors everything for the soul. The
soul's conclusions about its impressions will accord with this
sense naturally, till it learns better. And as a soul's continued
existence is its continued education, an educing or drawing
to incarnation and embodiment the faculties and powers of
being, its natural sense and conclusion will be corrected only
as this process moves on.

In time belongs, therefore, first, the natural and its con-
sequences; afterward the eternally true and its consequences.
The first is brought by Nature, with the second volition is
concerned.

QUESTIONS.

Are there " material senses " ? If not, why not?

If the five senses belong to being, how would you name
them?

Can any change in existence cause a change in being?
If not, why not?

Can any change in existence make the soul anything but
soul?

Is Nature altered, or vindicated, by the working of the
law of cause and effect?

May there be in existence a sense that is not one of the
ixve senses of being?

122 MORTAL SENSE.

If there be such a sense does it precede, or accompany,
the existent soul?

If it accompanies the soul at the beginning of existence
does it necessarily continue throughout existence?

If it does not exist till the Soul is existent is it temporal
or eternal?

What is meant by " the infant soul " ?

Are the limitations of infancy natural or unnatural?

Can the infancy of existent soul be perpetual?

Can the existent soul choose not to have an infancy?

Can it stand in the world full-grown, without the growth
from infancy to maturity?

Can volition destrov the order of Nature?

«/

What is the difference between the natural sense of the
existent soul, and the five senses belonging to being?

What is the natural conclusion of the natural sense?

What leads to this conclusion?

Is the natural conclusion in accord with the truth of being?

If not, what stands between it and the true conclusion?

What is overcome and left behind in the growth of the
soul?

CHAPTEK XXYin.
Mortality and Immortality.

Mortality is the consequence of mortal sense, immortality
is the consequence of the true sense, as either is the controlling
sense in the soul's existence. Mortality, therefore, precedes
immortality for the existent soul. Mortality is for all unlike-
ness to the Absolute, immortality is for all likeness.

All unlikeness must consist in such conclusions, and their
manifestation, as are contrary to the eternal truth of being;
likeness consists in such conclusions and their manifestation,
as are in accord with the truth of being.

Both manifestations, the unlike that is first and the like
that is last, must be through Person, Nature's means to that
end; a means totally unchanged by either manifestation from
what it is as a factor in the eternal order.

Mortality, and what it includes, has place in existence, is
experienced by a living soul. Immortality is mortality's
legitimate successor, to be afterward experienced by a living
soul; and both mortality and immortality must be qualities
of self -consciousness or they could not be experienced by a soul.

An existent soul can know only that which it includes.
As self-consciousness, it knows what is included in self-con-
sciousness.

An existent soul knows, or experiences, first, what is sensed

through the senses of being naturally operative in the soul at

the threshold of existence; then follows the judgment ren-

123

124 MORTALITY AND IMMORTALITY.

dered by the soul's own sense, the mortal sense, which, neces-
sarily, gives quality to self-consciousness.

Quality is changed as faculties of being become operative,
correcting the natural judgment or feeling. The natural
judgment, and what it begets, dies as the true conception of
being and existence displaces it. The quality of self-con-
sciousness that is mortality, comes to an end as it is displaced
by a different quality.

From mortality to immortality, from the beginning to the
end of existence, a soul is soul, self-consciousness is self-
consciousness, and never becomes Matter or Shape or anything
else; but the quality stamped, impressed, upon a soul, changes;
changes from unlikeness to Origin to Likeness to the Absolute.

In Existence Likeness overcomes unlikeness because the
soul comes over from the first that is natural to the subsequent
that is possible. The soul puts off the one by putting on the
other. From shoot to matured tree a putting off and putting
on is steadily going forward, the process an orderly manifesta-
tion of the nature and possibilities of the acorn.

For illustration, suppose a clear colorless glass filled by a
red liquid. The glass appears red. Filled successively by
yellow, green, blue and violet liquids the glass appears yellow,
green, blue and violet in turn, yet all the while is the same
colorless glass. Were the glass refilled by displacement the
red would be mixed with the yellow till it was entirely dis-
placed by the yellow which in turn would be mixed with the
green till the green had entirely displaced the yellow; and
so on till, if the glass were filled by a colorless liquid, all traces
of color would disappear.

So the existent soul, because of its nature and the factors
to which it is related, reflects what is in it, what comes into it,
and embodies what it includes. Change by displacement in
the soul must become change by displacement in the body —

MORTALITY AND IMMORTALITY. 125

in what is bodied forth in the Nature-Body, this fundamental
Body remaining the same even as soul is always soul.

QUESTIONS.

What is mortality?

To what does mortality pertain? To Person, Matter, the
Nature-Body, the existent soul, or all of them?

Is mortality a direct consequence from the Absolute?

Can Derived being be mortal?

Can a soul's possible existence be bounded by and limited
to, mortality?

What is immortality?

To what does it belong?

Which is first, mortality or immortality?

Can a soul know anything self-consciousness does not
include?

Does immortality mean " to forever be/' or, " to be fully
conscious of eternal being " ?

By what means is self -consciousness qualified?

Is a quality of self -consciousness capable of change?

What has a quality of self-consciousness to do with the
progress of the soul?

Which of the two, mortality and immortality, is to be put
off and which put on?

What is to put off and put on?

If a soul be qualified in aspect and manifestation by what
it contains, is it thereby changed in nature?

What will a soul embody?
? What gives quality to embodiment?

Can there be a mortal embodiment?

126 MORTALITY AND IMMORTALITY.

Can there be an immortal embodiment?
If so, which is first?
Does an embodiment make itself?
If not, what is the maker?

Is the Nature-Body changed by any quality of em-
bodiment?

CHAPTEK XXIX.
The Initial Impulse and its Persistence.

If Primal Energy is called " Thought," then Thought is
the Creative Power. Because First Cause has no origin but
is eternally subsistent; because the activity of Cause is the
necessity of its nature, the Creative Power is the Initial Im-
pulse for all that follows in the sequence constituting Creation.

Without it none of the other factors could be, no existent
soul would be related to them. In it, ceaselessly active as it
must be, is seen the dynamic Force that pushes the Soul to
existence and eventually brings the existent soul to Origin.

Working in a circle that is Creation, producing first the
Expression that is followed by the compound factor, it pushes
out from being what is in being, bringing to existence eventu-
ally all that is contained therein; but, first, the shoot that
gradually embodies all the potencies of the acorn of being.

Conservation of energy is an eternal necessity. None is
wasted or lost, and through the differing " modes of motion "
original Motion returns to itself and ceaselessly completes its
circuit. But in its return it tends to bring with it the ex-
istent soul.

Brought by this Energy to Existence, pushed by it through
Existence, the existent soul finally emerges from Existence to
the realm of eternal God-like being, bringing with it the In-
carnation and Embodiment of God-Likeness as its own in-
carnation and embodiment.

This is the order from the Impersonal God that is the

127

128 THE INITIAL IMPULSE AND ITS PERSISTENCE.

beginning, to the Personal God that is the end of Creation^
for the Incarnation and Embodiment of God by means of
Incarnation and Embodiment of God-Likeness is the end
sought from the beginning; sought, not by a personal Being
who works according to his intention, but by the Impersonal
that fulfils the necessity of its nature.

The beginning and the end are one, or are united, but
the first is last and the last is first.

QUESTIONS.

What is the Initial Impulse of Creation?

What is its Origin?

Is it a motion that is begun in time?

Is it causative, or otherwise?

What brings a soul to existence?

What impels a soul toward its Origin?

Why is Eorce dynamic?

Has the Initial Impulse aught to do with bringing the
faculties of being into existence?

Is it with, or apart from, the existent soul?

Is it original, or derived?

Is any Force lost?

If the course of the Initial Impulse and the course of a
soul are in the same direction, will not a soul be helped by
the tendency?

If a soul ascends to Origin what will it bring with it?

What is the End of Creation destined from the Beginning?

CHAPTER XXX.
The End from the Beginning.

Parts of Derived being

Impersonal Ood

Derived being
The Forming
Power

Existent soul

with its

stages

5

1 — The Beginning

2 — Expressions of the Beginning that, together, constitute

3 — The Unit — The Derived being that includes Soul. Its compelled
activity is the Forming Power.

4 — The Formed. With its variety constituting the Great World, and,
as a unit, the little World or representative Person. Seen by

5 — The Existent Soul, which has its stages of existence or progress
according to the activity in it of the natures, faculties, and powers
of being. After it has looked upon the World through the Human
Person its progress is human progress.

129

130 THE END FROM TEE BEGINNING.

The beginning of the circle must be also its end. The
end is not, till the beginning is reached. The only growing
factor in Creation is the existent soul. All else is fixed, for-
ever keeping position relative to the other factors and their
governing Principle.

Existence from the Derived being can find an end only at
the Beginning of that being. Existence lies, therefore, be-
tween 3 and 1, the lower half of the circle.

In existence the Formed is the naturally visible to the
existent soul, and through the senses which are active at the
beginning of existence. All else in being is to be found, used,
and brought to embodiment. When all that constitutes being
is incarnated and embodied, the circle is complete, Creation
is finished.

The Plan is with the Beginning, it is what the nature of
First Cause compels. The work of Building is done in Ex-
istence, and the existent soul is the Builder. The Builded
is the work complete according to the Plan, the End that is
from the Beginning.

QUESTIONS.

If Creation is illustrated by a circle, where will you look
for its end?

Why must Beginning and End be at one?

What is the Plan in Creation?

What is the Builder according to Plan?

Can the Plan be changed?

If so what or who can change it?

Is the Builder a builder from choice, or by nature?

Can there be a Building without a Builder?

Can there be a Building without a prior Plan?

TEE END FROM THE BEGINNING. 131

Can God change the Plan and thereby compel a change
in the Building?

Can God prevent the Builder from working?
Can Creation cease to be?
Can its End be defeated?

CHAPTEE XXXI.
Individuality and Peesonality.

As the existent soul is the only growing factor, all others
being fixed in their nature and relation to each other; as it
is immediately connected with Person, this unity constituting
Personality, it follows that a personality can become more
and more, while its individual identity is stable.

This distinction between the being preceding human ex-
istence, which is eternal Individuality, and an existing per-
sonality, is important. Distinctiveness without separation
obtains from Beginning to End of Creation.

Personality is distinct from Individuality, but not sepa-
rate from it. They are united, but are not identical. Indi-
viduality is the Lord of a personality as that which is the
same yesterday, to-day and forever. A personality is not the
same yesterday, to-day and forever, for existence has its first
and last stage, its infancy and maturity, and all intervening
stages, which a personality encounters and experiences as its
own becoming.

A personality becomes more and more till it has become
all it can be. Personality, as existent soul and Person, grows
subjectively, rather than objectively. Person is the objective
of Personality, existent soul is the subjective. Person never
can become more than it is naturally — Figure, representing
the Number.

The existent soul using Person will become more, or

greater in quantity; more and more till the Soul inherent in

132

INDIVIDUALITY AND PERSONALITY. 133

being as the Likeness of God becomes fully existent, fully
incarnated and embodied.

Individuality has no— can have no, family name. It is
the Lord. A personality can have, does have, a family name.

A personality is a living or existent soul, with a body that
is Person in shape, with Matter and materiality within the
outline of shape.

Between all that constitutes Personality and the Absolute
that is the Beginning of Creation stands Individuality or
Derived being. Consequently all that constitutes Personality
is related more directly to Individuality than to the Absolute.

Personality is related directly to Individuality and indi-
rectly to the Absolute. All that constitutes Personality —
Reproduction, Representation and existent soul — is from In-
dividuality as the growing tree is from the acorn; not voli-
tionally, but by necessity, due to the law of cause and effect.
The ascent of Personality is the onward course of Existence.

The first shoot from the acorn is the first stage of the
existence of the germ-tree in the acorn. Only the fully
matured tree can be the end of logical existence.

The ascent of Personality must continue till Personality
has been given, or is attached, to the Impersonal Absolute,
till Beginning and End are united in Incarnation and Em-
bodiment.

Personality is affected by time, in the sense that it changes
in time. No amount of time can change the Individuality.

Existent soul, as self -consciousness, may include what to it
is present and palpable reality, but which is foreign to the
changeless nature of Individuality, the only permanent
Reality. Nothing seen and felt by the existent soul can alter
for one moment of time the nature and possibilities of De-
rived being.

Time is registration of growth. Individuality never grows,

134 INDIVIDUALITY AND PERSONALITY.

it becomes manifest. Existent soul grows, and registers its
growth in embodiment.

Change in self-consciousness constitutes the whole of ex-
istence and time, Though the first shoot becomes a tiny stem,
which becomes a stronger stem sending forth leaves, this
stronger becoming a sapling with twigs, which is followed by
a trunk putting forth branches, which, in their turn, produce
branches, twigs and leaves, the nature of the prior acorn re-
mains unchanged. Its manifestation is gradual, and this
gradual appearing constitutes the necessary change that results
in the perfected tree.

In the order that constitutes Creation, then, Personality
follows Individuality, is consequent upon it. Time and Ex-
istence are concerned with Personality, one part of which —
the existent soul — becomes in time and existence more than
it is at the beginning of time and existence.

Person is the same throughout time, Matter is the same,
self-consciousness becomes all it can become — equal to the re-
quirements of the Absolute.

QUESTIONS.

Why is the existent soul the only growing factor?

To which factor in the eternal order is the term " Indi-
viduality " applied?

Can the nature of Individuality change? If not, why not?
Does Individuality grow? If not, why not?
What is the composition of Personality?

Are Individuality and Personality fundamentally separate
from each other?

If not, can time, or any processes of time, separate them?

What is meant by " the growth of Personality " ?

INDIVIDUALITY AND PERSONALITY. 135

If Personality becomes more, or higher in quality, then it
is at the beginning of existence, what part of Personality
attains this result?

Can Person become in time more than it is as antecedent
to time? If not, why not?

Where do personal names belong? To existence, or to
the eternal?

Is a soul existent by its own choice?

What is the difference between " volition " and " Nat-
ure " ?

Is the growth of Personality a progressive or a retrograde
movement?

What is the end of this growth?

Is the end of this growth involved in its beginning?

What is the difference between " reality to the existent
soul " and " permanent Reality " ?

What is the relation of embodiment to existence?
Is change in embodiment a change in Reality?
Can the permanent be changed by time?

CHAPTER XXXn.

Fundamental Rules.

An Addition, Subtraction, and Multiplication is funda-
mental in the Science of Being, and enters, therefore, into
all problems. The problems of existence are manifold, their
solution impossible without perception of their governing
principle. As in mathematics all depends upon the nature
of the unit and perception of that nature, so, in the Science
of Being, all depends upon the nature of First Cause, and
perception of what it compels.

ADDITION.

First Cause + Motion + Derived being + the Forming
Power + the Compound Factor + Existent Soul, leads to
Personality, Existence and Environment, a trinity in unity.
Add this unity to the rest and we have 7 as the number of
completion.

First Cause,

Motion,

Derived being,

The Forming Power,

The Compound Factor,

Existent Soul,

The Unity,

136

FUNDAMENTAL RULES. 137

SUBTRACTION.

Subtract a consequence from the nature of which it is
a result, and that nature is in nowise lessened or impaired.

Subtract Derived being from First Cause and that Cause
still stands inviolate as the Absolute.

Subtract the Forming Power from Primal Energy, and
that Energy remains the same in itself.

Subtract Matter from Spirit and Spirit remains the one
Substance.

Subtract Person from being, and Individuality still stands
complete in itself.

Of course this subtraction, in the sense of disconnection
and destruction, is impossible, for all these factors are indis-
solubly bound together; but as showing no impairment of
value, or change in the nature of each factor, it is theoretically
possible and helpful.

MULTIPLICATION.

Multiply self-consciousness, or existent soul, by the re-
sources of its being, and Perfected Soul is the result.

The first shoot from the acorn multiplied by the resources
of the acorn and surroundings will bring, at last, the full-
grown tree.

As the existent soul draws upon the nature of Derived
being, bringing to incarnation and embodiment all that per-
tains to the nature of the Expression of God, it is multiplied
or increased till it is all it can be — the Personal God.

QUESTIONS.

What factors by their mutual relation bring as their
united consequence Personality and its Environment?

138 FUNDAMENTAL RULES.

Could this consequence be forthcoming were any of the
preceding factors lacking?

If Person could be annihilated would the Derived being
be lessened thereby?

If Person could be annihilated would the being be mani-
fested?

Is multiplication — as the term is here applied — possible
for anything that can not be increased?

Can you see that multiplication for the existent soul does
not mean many more such souls, but the increase of the same
individual self -consciousness?

How, then, is the existent soul multiplied?

CHAPTER XXXIII.
The Major and Minor Purpose.

Existence, without a purpose, as a matter of chance, is
inconceivable. Existence with a purpose, for a purpose, to
be carried out, is reasonable. If existence is the natural con-
sequence of factors changeless in themselves and in their
orderly relation, the purpose carried out by, and in, existence
is compelled by the nature of those factors and their relation;
hence it is a purpose that can not be changed. It is natural,
not volitional, compelled, not permitted.

This purpose must be the Manifestation of the Absolute
— manifestation full and complete; therefore it must be
gradual, or in time. The Will of God that is constantly being
done, must be the nature of God pushing ceaselessly to
manifestation.

Remembering the definition of " To manifest " we see
that to make First Cause " visible, plain, clear, obvious to
understanding " is the purpose to be carried out in existence;
to be carried out by a personality, by the existent soul, the
only growing factor.

A possibility is next to be considered. Can the existent
soul have a purpose of its own? If so, it will be the minor
purpose in existence, for the Absolute is the greater of
the two.

If there be another purpose may it be contrary to the

major purpose? Or may it be in accord with the major

purpose?

139

140 TEE MAJOR AND MINOR PURPOSE.

It is self -evidently true that where there are two purposes
at work at the same time, the end sought must be the same
or discord instead of accord is the result. If the two efforts
are in the same direction, and for the same result, the one
will help the other. If they are in opposite directions to dif-
fering results they may temporarily hinder each other, but
the stronger will win in the end. The major purpose must
overrule, eventually, the minor purpose, meanwhile there will
be conflict between them.

Conflict in existence is sure if the existent soul has a pur-
pose of its own that is not in accord with the Great Purpose.
In this case, however long the conflict may be, eventually the
minor must yield to the major purpose.

No moral responsibility for this conflict can attach to the
soul unless its conflicting purpose has been intentionally
formed, unless there is intent to contend with the major pur-
pose; yet responsibility, in the sense of cause and effect, for
conflict and discord, must belong to the -soul; for, from the
Beginning all the way to Personality and Existence, all is
harmony; the same harmony attending the major purpose
carried out through Existence.

Creation from Beginning to End is harmonious because,
in what it is, all is in accord with its governing Principle;
but what it is to the existent soul that looks out upon Environ-
ment, will depend upon how it appears to the soul.

Upon its appearance to the soul, upon impression made
by Environment upon the soul through the senses, upon the
conclusion formed by the soul with its own natural or mortal
sense, will depend what Environment is to the soul.

If the conclusion, though according to impression, is con-
trary to the true nature of Environment and of being, it is a
false conclusion, one not in accord with governing Principle.

Conflict will be the inevitable consequence, conflict be-

THE MAJOR AND MINOR PURPOSE. 141

tween what is true to the existent soul and what is eternally
true in itself — Environment, or the World, as a factor in the
order constituting Creation.

If natural immediate tendency for the existent soul be
contrary to the underlying remote tendency in Creation, the
soul will act in accordance with the natural and immediate,
and some time, in some way, find itself in conflict with the
remote tendency. Meanwhile, though not morally to blame
for the conflict, and what it includes, it has caused it and must
experience what it includes. The sequence of cause and effect
compels.

If the major purpose is the overruling purpose, soon or
late the minor purpose must be abandoned. The conflict,
with attendant experiences for the soul, will show it the mis-
take it has made. As the soul sees and learns it will give up
what it has ignorantly made for itself, make a new purpose,
one in accord with the Great Purpose, and work in harmony
with it. It will lay down its own will, to work with the great
Will that is being done.

QUESTIONS.

As you look upon visible Nature can you not see evidence
of design or purpose?

Tracing the fixed factors in their order, can you see the
purpose?

Is this purpose capable of change?

What would change in this purpose imply?

Is this purpose carried out at once, or in time?

Why is Manifestation cumulative?

Which factor is essential to the carrying out of the purpose?

If " to manifest " is to make visible, can there be any
manifestation without something capable of seeing: it?

142 THE MAJOR AND MINOR PURPOSE.

Is the Onlooker capable of forming a purpose of his own?
If so, why and how?

Given two purposes, when is there harmony, and when
discord, between them?

If two purposes conflict with each other, what must be
the final result, and on what will it depend?

If a purpose contrary to the Almighty purpose is formed
ignorantly by the existent soul, is it morally to blame?

If not, will the lack of moral responsibility enable it to
escape the consequences?

To what will the consequences be due?

Is there tendency with the existent soul to a contrary pur-
pose? If so, why?

Can anything originating in Existence overthrow or de-
stroy aught that precedes Existence?

What do you understand by " my will " and " thy
Will " ?

CHAPTEK XXXIY.

Natural Tendency.

As a help toward perception of the present application of
the term " natural tendency " consider the following illus-
tration.

A human face is perfect when none of its features is lack-
ing. When all that enters into the composition of a human
face is there, the face is perfect; perfect in nature, for it
has all. Differing features compose the human face. One
of them fills an office none of the others can fill. The eyes —
for the purpose of the illustration — see, they look out. Did
they turn in, the face would not be perfect, the eyes would
not be as they should be. Because they are as they should
be they look out, therefore upon environment instead of upon
the face. This is their natural tendency.

Is it wrong that they do not look upon the face in which
they belong? Is it not right that they look upon environment
instead? This is natural, and the purely natural is never
ethically wrong. Because the face is perfect the eyes look
from, instead of upon, the face in which they belong.

The existent soul looks out from being, naturally, there-
fore does not look upon it, but upon Environment instead.
Environment includes Reproduction and Representation, or
Matter and its Shapes. The existent soul sees naturally only
what is objective to it, not its real being that is subjective to
it. This is natural tendency, due to the relativity of fixed
factors, the sequence of cause and effect.

143

144 NATURAL TENDENCY.

Because Derived being is complete, all it can be, self -con-
sciousness, inherent in, and existent from, being, looks out
upon, not being itself, but Representation — the non-being.
Looking away from being, upon the non-being, it must later
look through what it first looks upon, if it would find its own
perfect being.

To look upon the World and what it contains, upon the
human Person and the persons of all species in all kingdoms,
is natural for the existent soul. Nature brings it to existence
and confronts it with the phenomenal, places it in the Kinder-
garten where the infant soul is to receive its first lessons as
object lessons. Environment is the soul's " here." It exists,
" here," not by its own choice but as the consequence brought
by Nature and the governing Principle.

Looking upon the phenomenal, not seeing its own being
from which it exists, it may reach a conclusion about what it
sees that is contrary to the truth of being — will surely be
contrary to the truth of its being, through ignorance of that
being. And this is natural tendency, to be experienced and
reckoned with by every soul born to the World; a conse-
quence due to the order compelled by the sequence of cause
and effect.

A sense that the objects looked upon are the realities of
existence will be natural to the existent soul because it, at
first, sees no more; and this mortal sense will rule till it
learns more.

QUESTIONS.

Why is the human face — in the illustration — perfect?

What do you understand by the term " perfect " as ap-
plied to Derived being?

If the acorn is said to be " perfect," does this imply there
can be no growth from it?

NATURAL TENDENCY. 145

Does the term " perfect " applied to fundamentals imply
there can be no consequence from them?

What do you mean if you say " Man is perfect " ?

When you thus speak do you refer to the Genus or a
species?

When you say " the spiritual is perfect " do you mean
there can be no Environment and Existence?

When you pronounce anything " perfect " had you not
better take care that you do not set up a limitation that is
contrary to Nature?

If the word " perfect " is used as meaning that which is,
in nature, all it can be, therefore is incapable of betterment,
does this imply that as the " perfect " is made manifest there
can be no betterment to us?

Why does the existent soul look from, instead of upon,
being?

If not upon being, what does it look upon?

Is it capable of more than merely looking upon? If so,
why?

To what does the word " phenomenal " apply?

Which is the wiser course, to ignore a natural tendency,
or deal with it according to the causes back of it?

Can a natural tendency forever dominate the existent soul?
10

CHAPTEE XXXV.
Original Sin.

To mis-take, is to sin. The existent sonl is beguiled by
appearance. Every one called a man, a woman, has sinned
the original sin, has been beguiled by the appearance of en-
vironment. Existence includes this beguiling.

To be born into the world whether in palace or hovel, is
to look out from, away from, eternal Reality and upon the
phenomenal; to mistake the phenomenal for the real; to live
according to this mortal sense; to experience the consequence
it compels; to learn, gradually, by means of the consequence
the mistake that has been made; to make effort to destroy its
progeny; to learn more and more the resources of eternal
being and use them in existence; to " fight the good fight "
till all error is cast out of the soul and its embodiment, and the
eternal truth of being has been incarnated and embodied
instead.

Existence for the soul is according to the eternal order.
Existence to the soul is according to its own order. It is first
according to natural tendency, and afterward according to the
faculties of being.

The " sin " due to the sequence of effect from Origin,

and that may be called, therefore, " original sin," is the soul's

mistake consequent upon natural tendency. It brings with

it a penalty, not purposely inflicted by some power that could

withhold it, but as effect of cause.

146

ORIGINAL SIN 147

Truly " in Adam's fall we sinned all," for each soul is
Adam whatever the name by which he is called by his friends;
and we, too, are in the Garden of Eden, for, as existent souls
looking out upon a World that is harmoniously related to the
unseen, we are in harmony with all, past and present, and
with the Great Purpose that is to be wrought out.

But as we view what we look upon, seeing Environment
through the mortal sense conclusion about it, mistaking it for
what it is not, we are out of harmony with both Environment
and being. Through the Onlooker discord enters into the
Garden of Eden. For him, the harmony is not, it waits to
be discovered. Through natural ignorance a purpose con-
trary to the Great Purpose is held by the existent soul, and
conflict ensues.

To live to the things of sense, instead of to the reality of
being, is the effect of the cause that brings it. As the visible
constitutes the only reality to the soul, it lives on and from
that basis, making for itself what had no previous existence.

The infant soul is the sinner, its natural conclusion is the
sin, the sin is the consequence of natural tendency and igno-
rance, the ignorance is the limitation of a state of consciousness,
or is the natural infancy of the existent soul.

• QUESTIONS.

Can you divest yourself of the ecclesiastical idea of " orig-
inal sin " and see it as " mis-taking " ?

Are you morally to blame for doing what others judge to
be wrong, if you know no better?

Were you born possessing full knowledge of what and
whence you are, or only with capacity for such knowledge?

If not, was either your ignorance or your birth a mistake ?

Can there be a mis-taking without a taker — one to take?

148 ORIGINAL SIN.

Have you not taken the phenomenal world, your phe-
nomenal body, for the real World and the real you ?

Was this taking of the visible for what it is not, wilful
on your part?

Can you see how you unintentionally formed a purpose
of your own that was contrary to the Great Purpose?

What has, or will, the law of cause and effect compel
for you?

Is there a difference between what existence is for the soul,
and what it is to the soul?

If so, why is it not to the soul what it is for the soul?

Why have we " all sinned in Adam " ?

Is it in our power to get back to the original harmony?

Can all possible existence be bounded by one state of
consciousness?

Name the factor that is the sinner.

Who or what can be blamed for natural ignorance?

From what basis, according to what standard, do we live,
naturally?

From what possible basis, or standard, may we live,
possibly?

Is there a better remedy for sin and its consequences than
to abandon the fundamental mistake?

CHAPTER XXXVI.
The Self-idea.

The self -idea, or an idea of self, is the accompaniment of
existence. The conception of self, in response to the ques-
tion What am I?, is inevitable. First, " I am," then " What
am I? " Nature and its governing Principle bring the decla-
ration of being and compel the question.

The existent soul having its own Person, looking upon it
and upon Environment, is the questioner. The Onlooker as
the questioner forms the self-conception that is the answer to
the question. The conceiver is brought to existence, the con-
ception is formed in existence, and according to the concep-
tion existence becomes to the conceiver.

Self -conception, or the self -idea, becomes the standard ac-
cording to which all things are judged by the existent soul.
The self -conception or self -idea is, first, the one that is natural,
and afterward the one that is possible, the possible being
legitimate successor to the natural.

Looking upon its own Person and Environment, seeing no
more because looking away from being, the existent soul
forms for itself that which is contrary to the positive change-
less truth of its being; the self -conception " I am what I see"

All the soul sees naturally as a consequence of its own

existence is what is called " the material." Consequently the

self -conception is " I am material in substance. I have length,

breadth and thickness. I weigh so many pounds, I occupy

so much space. This that I see and feel is I, myself."

But this self-conception is sin, a mis-taking. Though

149

150 TEE SELF-IDEA.

error, it is true to the soul and constitutes its self -idea. The
self -idea, therefore, is erroneous and as the standard of judg-
ment leads to further mis-taking. Error instead of truth
becomes the guide for the existent soul. Living according
to the error, because the truth is not yet discerned, the soul
is led away from instead of to the Great Purpose.

As Manifestation is the aim and end of Creation, all that
is contained in Creation must be manifested before Manifesta-
tion can be full and complete. Through the mis-taking of
the existent soul something has entered into the order that
was not there before — could not be there as it is the creation
of the existent soul.

The soul's self -idea must be manifested. Only as it is
manifested, or becomes visible to the soul, can its nature be
known. It is contrary to the positive abstract truth of being.
Its contrariness must be manifested in order to be made
" plain, clear, visible," to the soul. The soul must see its own
error. This is compelled by the course of Nature — by what
Nature is. The Great Purpose is beneficent, not vindictive.

Manifestation to the soul is good for the soul, for by it the
soul sees the nature of its own self-idea. What the existent
soul is as inherent in being, is to be manifested. What it first
thinks it is, is to be first manifested. If its self -idea is con-
trary to the nature of its real being, this contrariness will be
manifested. This manifestation of its own belief will be good
for the soul, however it may be felt by the soul.

The need for Manifestation, a logical need compelled by
the nature of the Beginning, provides the way by which the
existent soul has its own error revealed to it. The Great Pur-
pose is first carried out by revelation of a contrary purpose.
A contrary purpose is not abandoned till it is seen to be con-
trary. To be seen it must be manifested.

The existent soul is innocent of all intent to form a mis-

THE SELF-IDEA. 151

conception. Its innocence is its natural ignorance. It is pure
before it falls into the knowledge gained in existence, the
knowledge that is error, not truth, that is its own conception
of self. It is defiled by the error, it must be redeemed from
both error and defilement. To be redeemed both must be
manifested to it. Consequently experience for the existent
soul will consist in the gradual manifestation to it of its own
self-idea and the consequences.

This natural self-idea that is contrary to the soul's true,
yet invisible, being, is unlikeness to First Cause. Unlikeness
is manifested in existence before Likeness is manifested.
Before complete Likeness to First Cause can be manifested
and the Great Purpose fulfilled, contrariness must be done
away with.

Contrariness has its root in error, the error originates in
self-conception. The destroying ax must be laid at the root
of the tree bearing this fruit, for its fruit is not good.

Conflict in human existence is inevitable, conflict between
the self-made error and the eternal truth that waits for mani-
festation. Self-consciousness is the battle-ground where the
conflict rages. The soul's purpose, ignorantly formed, to make
itself a thing of Matter, is steadily contested by the Great
Purpose to make it the existent Likeness of God.

QUESTIONS.

What is the natural consequence of existence as a living
soul?

What is, and whence comes, the questioner in existence?
Is answer for the questioner, possible?

Whence comes the answer to the question of the ques-
tioner?

Is there a questioner before existence begins? Before
there is an existent soul?

152 THE SELF-IDEA,

If not, why not?

What is the standard of judgment for the questioner?

Does existence and environment appear according to, or
contrary to, the standard of judgment?

What do you understand by " self-conception " ?
To what is the term " the material " applied?
What is a materialistic self -idea?

Is there any natural foundation for a materialistic self-
conception?

How, by what means, is the existent soul led away from
the Great Purpose?

How is it led back to the Great Purpose?

What part does Manifestation play in the education of
the existent soul?

Would the soul lose or gain were there no Manifestation
in Creation?

Is Manifestation imperative or volitional?

Is a hind of Manifestation inevitable or volitional?

What gives quality to a manifestation?

To what must a manifestation conform?

Is anything that belongs to the sequence of cause and
effect, vindictive?

Does any of the factors preceding the existent soul store
up and pour out vengeance upon the soul?

When will a purpose contrary to the Great Purpose be
abandoned by the soul?

What is the natural purity of the existent soul?
What is its defilement?

By what means is it redeemed from defilement?
Does conflict belong to existence? If so, why?

CHAPTEK XXXVII.
To Create and to Form.

We have seen that the Creative power and the Forming
power precede Existence. The action of First Cause being
the Creative power, and the activity of Derived being the
Forming power, not only both these powers, but their direct,
or impersonal, results, precede human existence.

In the order of enumeration, Derived being, as the direct
product of the Creative power, and Representation, as the
direct product of the Forming power, are antecedent to the
existent soul that looks out upon Environment. But these
powers must persist because they are not volitional, therefore
their activity can not be suspended at will. They must con-
tinue to operate, therefore they operate in Existence.

To operate in Existence they must operate in what be-
longs to Existence. Hence they operate in and through the
existent soul, and their operation will be made manifest
because Manifestation is the purpose of Existence. Their
operation in Existence will not be volitional, but imperative;
as imperative as all that precedes Existence. Active in the
existent soul, their activity is compelled by the sequence of
cause and effect. These powers, therefore, use the existent
soul for their own manifestation.

The soul naturally, ignorantly, forms its self-idea and
creates Error. The self -idea and its error are pushed to mani-
festation by the Primal Energy that completes a circuit. But

there is no Life, Substance or Intelligence in Error. All that

153

154 TO CREATE AND TO FORM.

expresses or reflects them is directly related to them as effect
of cause.

Error is the expression of ignorance, the consequence of
the existent soul's natural ignorance of the unseen. There-
fore it is not Reality, for the eternal and changeless is Reality.
It is only the seeming, only what seems real to the existent
soul while it is believed to be truth.

By means of what Nature offers, Incarnation and Embodi-
ment, the soul will see what it forms and creates, for what it
thus produces is incarnated and embodied in the Nature-Body.
Nature provides the means by which, not only what being is,
is eventually made manifest, but also what the existent soul
believes it to be ; for all that the soul makes for itself appears
in time, evidence of the falsity as well as evidence of the
truth.

The Forming power, active in the existent soul, enables
the soul to form its self -idea; the Creative power that, work-
ing through being, has pushed the Soul to existence, working
in the existent soul pushes its self-idea to manifestation in
incarnation and embodiment. Consequently before the soul,
as it looks out from being, stands, not only the phenomenal,
Representation, but also what is embodied in the phenomenal.
The soul's inwardness, what it holds within, becomes objective
to the soul; becomes the without.

From First Cause down to the embodiment, or objectiviza-
tion, of natural mis-taking, the sequence of cause and effect
makes a natural open road from one to the other. It follows
that whatever the soul holds within will eventually become
the without; and that quality of incarnation and embodiment
will depend upon the quality of self -consciousness; while the
quality of self-consciousness will depend upon what the soul
holds within.

If the soul has power to determine what it will hold

TO CREATE AND TO FORM. 155

within; power to choose what its self -idea shall be; power to
reject the first natural self -idea and to form another that is
in accord with true being, then the true being will stand
forth in incarnation and embodiment when the true self -idea
is formed in and held by the soul. And between the incarna-
tion of the mis-taking that is natural or involuntary, and the
highest possible incarnation and embodiment, stands volition,
and a work voluntarily undertaken and fostered to comple-
tion by the soul.

As user of the senses, faculties and powers of being, while
also possessor of the differing natures in being, the soul makes
continually that which is embodied in the Nature-Body; that
which gives quality to embodiment. As giver of quality the
soul is a king in its own domain, doing what Nature unaided
can not do.

The quality imparted to embodiment by the soul's igno-
rant mis-taking may be corrected by the conscious use of the
Forming power. Used according to the faculties of being,
according to Insight and Understanding, quality in an as-
cending scale is the consequence until the highest of all
qualities is given to embodiment — Likeness to God. Not till
then can the Impersonal become incarnated and the Personal
God stand forth as the End of Creation.

Briefly, the power to Create and the power to Form attend
an existent soul. This soul naturally and inevitably forms its
own self -idea. It forms its self -idea, first, according to mortal
sense, and creates thereby, though ignorantly, a kind of a
man that is contrary to the true nature of being; one that
is from the dust and which must therefore return to the dust,
for the circle of Creation compels return to Origin.

The soul generates for itself what did not previously exist,
what has no place among the fixed factors. It must re-gen-
erate, and the same powers will be concerned in the re-

156 TO CREATE AND TO FORM.

generation, for they, being eternal and eternally operative,
attend a soul throughout existence. All is for the existent
soul, but this soul must generate for itself. The process of
generation, which becomes a process of re-generation, is ex-
istence in time.

QUESTIONS.

Whence come the power to Create and the power to Form?
What is the difference between these two powers?
Do they originate in, or accompany, Existence?

What is the relation of Derived being to the Creative
Power?

What to the Forming Power?

Does the activity of these powers depend upon volition?
How far does the activity of these powers extend?
Can they cease at any point in Creation?

If they are operative in Existence, where shall we look
for their operation?

If they operate in Existence, what is the consequence?

If they operate in Existence can the soul suspend their
operation at will?

What is the difference between Keality and Actuality?

Does the existent soul make for itself? If so, by what
means?

If so, what is made?

If so, what becomes of what is made?

If the existent soul makes for itself, what does it see as it
looks out from being?

Does the existent soul, with what it makes, become ob-
jective to itself? If so, by what means?

TO CREATE AND TO FORM. 157

Upon what does quality of embodiment depend?

Upon what does the highest quality of embodiment
depend?

Can Nature alone, without the existent soul, bring the
highest incarnation and embodiment?

Is the existent soul helplessly subject to the two powers,
or can it use them?

If these impersonal powers can be used by the soul, what
may be accomplished?

What do you understand by " to generate " ?

What is the relation of re-generation to generation?

What is the work in Existence that must be done over
again?

What, and why, is it necessary for the soul to remake?

How does the abstract and obscure, become personal and
apparent?

CHAPTEK XXXVIII.
The Immaculate Conception.

Self-conception is the inevitable result of Existence and
the factors concerned. The first self-conception is corrupt,
or untrue, though natural. Not till self-conception is im-
maculate, or free from all error, all mis-taking, can Likeness
to God be incarnated and embodied in existence; for as it is
the self-idea that is pushed to manifestation, is embodied in
the Nature-Body, not till the soul's self-idea is like the true
being can such Likeness appear in manifestation.

Hence immaculate conception during existence must be
successor to the natural, though corrupt^ conception at the
beginning of existence; and volition standing between the
two compels that the immaculate conception shall be volitional.

In forming its first self-idea the soul acts according to
natural tendency; in forming the true self -idea, the one in
accord with being and its relation to the Absolute, the soul
acts in resistance to natural tendency. Resistance requires
perception that there is this tendency. Though the power to
perceive, or see through, as a faculty of being is for the soul,
perception is gained only in existence and after natural ten-
dency has determined the self-idea of the soul.

Enlightened use of the Forming power in resistance to
what is involuntary, is the way of salvation for the soul from
all that is corrupt and corrupting, the way of appropriation
and attainment of all that is possible; for whatever the soul
forms, the Creative power creates and brings to manifestation.

158

THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION. 159

First, the natural, afterward the spiritual is the order in
which incarnation and embodiment proceeds. The point of
change from the one to the other is when the soul, from hav-
ing been the used, becomes the user; where " I can and I
will " is opposed to natural tendency. Not till this point i9
reached can the conflict between the Great Purpose and a
contrary purpose cease, for not till then will the one ignorantly
encouraged be laid down and abandoned.

The overcoming of self, the natural self, through concep-
tion of the highest self, is a work that, accomplished first in
the soul, is brought to pass in embodiment because the within
becomes the without.

Nature and the governing Principle bring the existent
soul, equip it with the resources of being, provide the means
for impression that make demand upon, or stimulate these
resources, and give them material for work. The quality of
the result depends upon the soul, upon whether it is the natu-
rally used or the intentional user.

Nature supplies Incarnation for the soul and makes its
embodiment the natural consequence. The existent soul sup-
plies what is embodied. The self -idea, with its consequences,
is embodied. Embodiment takes quality from the self-idea
for the self-idea qualifies self-consciousness. A natural em-
bodiment precedes a spiritual embodiment for a natural self-
idea precedes the true self-idea.

Immaculate conception is not the first that is natural, but
the subsequent that is possible through enlightenment and
resistance to natural tendency. Immaculate conception pre-
cedes a soul's permanent embodiment. It is a possibility in
Existence encountered and accomplished in accordance with
law, instead of an exceptional occurrence contrary to law.

160 THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION.

REMARKS.

If you have been a devout believer in the dogma of Im-
maculate Conception as held by the Christian Church, you
may be shocked by the view here advanced. If so, remember
that we are seeking truth as above all, rather than vindication
of dogma. Try to lay aside for the moment that belief and
give yourself to a candid examination of logical sequence. If
it brings you to the unforeseen, do not fear. Nothing can
really hurt you but yourself, but the misplaced confidence
that leads you to accept as infallible truth what has no foun-
dation other than human belief.

Do not be afraid to be individual, for only as you become
so can the Great Purpose be fulfilled in you. Do not be afraid
to admit that a religious teaching may be a mistake; that
you may have been looking away from the eternally true when
you thought you were looking at it. Do not be afraid to ex-
plore, and as an explorer to set your foot upon land when you
come to it, fearing not to penetrate to the interior in further-
ance of your mission.

Even the God taught by Christian dogma could not fail
to respect you when you are fearless through sincerity of pur-
pose, even though your eye rest upon what has been kept secret
and what seems to detract from His glory.

Neither shall this fearlessness become recklessness and
make you overbold and egotistical. Keep close to true humil-
ity, many have seen with unveiled eye before you, many will
see after you; the more you see, because you are willing to
see, the more you will feel the awe inspired by revelation and
count yourself as only one who serves, not as one who rules,
his fellow-men.

Everywhere, on every hand are hearts hungry for the
bread of life that have tried to feed on the stones offered them

TEE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION. 1G1

instead. They have looked to a far off immaculate concep-
tion nineteen hundred years ago when the immaculate con-
ception of themselves would have given them that bread in
ever-increasing and abundant measure, would have wiped the
tears from their eyes, the pain from their hearts, the misery
from their lives and lifted them God-ward.

Count it all gain when you lose that whose only strength
is uncorroborated tradition, when you find that which exalts
Man instead of degrading him, when you discover that no
one who ever lived in the flesh bore a closer fundamental
relation to the Most High than is your own, made no attain-
ment that is not possible for you to make.

If a tree is known by its fruits ages of Christian dogma
have failed to rid the world of the miseries and sufferings of
mankind. Immaculate conception for all is the way of rid-
dance for all if it be the way of riddance for one. Take
heart, be patient, stand firm, keep all bandages from the eyes
and it will open before you.

QUESTIONS.

Can there be an existent soul without a self -conception?
Can not a self-conception be corrupt, in the sense of un-
true, without being a moral fault?

What is the meaning of the term " immaculate " as ap-
plied to self -conception?

What depends upon immaculate conception?

By what means is Likeness to Origin made manifest?

Is this means subject to, or independent of, the soul's
volition?

What is it necessary for the soul to resist?

How does the soul discover that there is anything to resist?
11

162 THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION.

What is the qualitative order of incarnation and em-
bodiment?

What determines change from one quality to another?

Can there be change in the quality of embodiment without
change in the embodying soul?

Whence has the existent soul its resources?

What is the stimuli for these resources?

CHAPTEE XXXIX.
The Origin of Evil.

" Evil — The noun evil is applicable to anything bad, whether morally,
or physically. The antithesis of both evil and bad is good. Effecting
mischief, trouble, or pain." — Dictionary.

If the Great Purpose to be carried out in existence is, the
bringing to full incarnation and embodiment the primal Like-
ness to the Absolute, this Purpose can be nothing but good.

The differing factors concerned therein, both in their
fundamental relation and their manifestation, can be noth-
ing but good. Existence itself as the means to the end, must
be good. The existent soul, as the product of Nature and
governing Principle, must be good, only, not bad. In Nature
and in Existence all is good, for all is consequence of law and
order.

Good in itself, according to law and order, how does ex-
istence, or the experiences of existence, seem to the Onlooker
who experiences them? He judges and pronounces, according
to his sense of them; and as they differ, rousing in him the
feeling of pleasure or of pain, he classifies them as good and
bad. For the existent soul, good is relative, not positive. All
is a matter of comparison, and the first standard of comparison,
is sensation.

But the good that is positive, that rules in, and overrules,

Creation, is absolute, not relative; and all it brings to the

existent soul is positively good for it, however relatively evil

some of the experiences may seem. For the soul is to grow,

163

164 THE ORIGIN OF EVIL.

expand to the circumference of being, and whatever stimu-
lates this growth is good because of the end to be attained.

Pain is remedial, for it is the consequence of the minor
purpose in existence. It leads the soul to look for its cause,
prevents it from being content with insufficiency. There can
be no pain, no evil, without something to experience what it
pronounces to be pain and evil; and there could be no such
condition were there not two purposes in conflict with each
other. Pain for the existent soul, which is evil to the ex-
istent soul, is remedial if it leads the soul to find the discord
between its involuntary purpose and the Great Purpose, and
stimulates its volitional work of conformity to the Great
Purpose.

Discovery of the sequence of cause and effect is not made
without something to inspire and stimulate a search for it.
Whatever assists revelation is beneficent for it opens the way
for what is needed by the existent soul. Growing pains will
inevitably be classified as evil and this evil will as inevitably
be left behind when growth has brought the existent soul out
of the limitations where they belong.

The mistaken self -conception is a knowledge gained in ex-
istence, but as this conception is contrary to truth it is error,
and knowledge that is error is an evil or bad knowledge that
brings consequences. Knowledge of existence is a good knowl-
edge, but a hind of knowledge in existence may be, by com-
parison, the antithesis of good.

Knowledge of good and evil, experience classified as good
and bad, lies at the threshold of existence and finds by means
of the existent soul incarnation and embodiment. But during
those phases of existence and stages of time wherein evil seems
the dominant quality, the absolute, positive good is steadily
pushing to ultimate manifestation.

Involuntary error bringing the consequence felt as evil,

THE ORIGIN OF EVIL. 165

and the intentional working to do evil, are two different
things. Original sin is not a moral evil, for it is involuntary.
An intent and effort to do evil while able to see and do the
contrary, gives moral evil, and at the beginning of its first
stage of existence a soul is incapable of moral evil. It acts
involuntarily according to natural tendency, according to its
own limited, or mortal, sense; and this sense is the father of
its conception of self.

As a soul becomes according to its ideal, and experiences
what pertains to its ideal, its feeling is the manifestation of its
self-idea, for thought is creative. As the natural self -idea is
" This that I see is I, myself " the feeling has location or is
in what is seen as the body, and in the Nature-Body is an em-
bodiment that gives to pain and discord a habitation.

Through Person is manifest what is included in embodi-
ment, discord and pain or dominant good. All forms of dis-
ease, dis-order, whether appearing physically or morally, as
forms of evil are temporary in nature. They are but condi-
tions, consequent upon the soul's ignorant mis-taking, to be
outgrown and brought to naught by the soul's conscious and
voluntary taking of that which belongs to it as its birthright.

Evil belongs to time, the dominant overruling good is
eternal. The existent soul knows, first, its own comparative
good by knowing the comparative evil. It knows at last that
all is good and there is no evil; that the eternal good is abso-
lute and has no comparative good or bad.

REMARKS.

No greater mistake has been handed on from generation
to generation than the misconception of the meaning of the
book of Genesis that attributes to Adam a moral fault, a wil-
ful disobedience of God's command; a disobedience entail-
ing disastrous consequences upon the whole human race.

166 THE ORIGIN OF EVIL.

%
Theology fails to discriminate between natural tendency and

intention, turns from Nature to see only a denominational
God. When the consequences of this mistake are consid-
ered, when one realizes the misery and despair of thousands
who have believed themselves under God's curse, unable to
extricate themselves because they could not believe what was
offered as the only way of salvation, he may well consider
the effort to show a different meaning to the account in
Genesis as worth making.

The origin of evil is a problem of the ages indeed, but its
solution is given in this first book of the Bible. " Our eyes
are holden that we can not see " when we look for a God ex-
traneous to Nature, occurrences that are a violation of her
established processes, arbitrarily instituted by a God that
could be offended by the eating of the fruit of a tree.

On the other hand the eyes of many who have expressed
allegiance to the " New Thought " are equally holden when
it* comes to dealing with this problem. They say " But if
God created Man perfect in the beginning, and if no change
is possible to God's creation, how is a sinner possible and how
can there be any evil? "

There is no sinner if is meant " one who intends to do
evil.'9 There is no evil except as " that which effects mis-
chief, trouble or pain." Neither of the three belong in the
order that is eternal as a factor of that order. All of them
belong in the experience of the Onlooker, only. A possibility
in existence to the soul that is the experiencer of all possibili-
ties can not possibly be a part of the real Man. A passing
sensation is a temporary fact to the one who feels it, without
being any part of his permanent self.

Were there no existence there would be no evil, there
would be no manifested good. Were there nothing to exist
there would be no existence. If there be the existent soul

THE ORIGIN OF EVIL. 167

there must be those experiences including contrast whose
sum constitutes the existence of the soul. The little green
shoot from the acorn, the existent soul that is to grow as far
as growth can be carried, has its own experiences as the shoot;
they can pertain to nothing else for they belong to it only,
and in no wise affect the nature of the acorn which is fixed
and stable. Neither can they prevent the ultimate result for
the shoot, if it is pushed to maturity by a force that nothing
merely incidental to a stage of growth can overcome.

The origin of evil is found in the nature of Man, the
necessity for existence, the incidentals of existence, and the
relation to them of the soul; and without believing in an
impossible God or a creation that is a flat contradiction of
what scientific research has discovered and established.

QUESTIONS.

Can there be any evil except as the opposite of what is
seen and felt as good?

Can any of the fundamental factors be evil in themselves?

Can their relation to each other be an evil relation?

As the impersonal consequence, is Existence good or evil?

Can any impersonal consequence be evil in itself?

Can anything be evil that is not felt as evil?

What is the difference between a relative good, and the
absolute good?

To which of these does a comparative evil belong?

Is pain vindictive ? If so, who or what purposely inflicts it ?

Can there be pain without feeling?

"What is it that feels?

What, in Existence, is the natural standard of comparison?

168 THE ORIGIN OF EVIL.

Can the development of the existent soul be helpfully
stimulated?

How is the soul stimulated to look for the causes of effects?

Can evil permanently overrule good?

Is original sin a moral evil?

Why is pain located in the body?

How are evil conditions brought to an end?

Does any evil appear in last analysis?

CHAPTER XL.
Choice.

It has been seen that with First Cause there can be no
power of choice, no occasion when First Cause could have
need to use such power, that the Absolute is beyond such
possibility.

Primal Energy can not choose, for it is Eirst Cause in
action.

Derived being as Effect of First Cause must be, both like
unto, and different from, the Absolute; otherwise cause and
effect would be identical — a logical impossibility. The dif-
ference can not be that which is in opposition to the Cause,
it must be in harmony with the Cause. The Effect, though
like unto, and yet different from, the producing Cause, must
be, nevertheless, in harmony with its Source at all points.

Derived being, as the individualization of the Absolute,
transmits to the existent soul all that pertains to it; or, as
said before, all that belongs to Derived being becomes opera-
tive in the soul. The Power of the Whole, the power of choice,
the power of volitional action, belongs to the existent soul
through its relation to Derived being.

If we call the aspect of Derived being that constitutes its
difference from the Absolute, its Humanity, and the aspect
that is its Likeness to the Absolute its Divinity, we shall see
that the power of choice must pertain, not only to the Derived
being, but to its Humanity; to that aspect of the supreme
Genus that distinguishes it from its Source and Cause.

This power is not in opposition to the Cause but in har-
mony with it, in the sense that difference between Cause and

169

170 CHOICE.

Effect is logical necessity and harmony. As the varying
capacities of being are brought to existence by becoming
operative in the soul, this power must act in the Human soul
and be made manifest in consequence. Though the power of
choice belongs to Derived being, the Chooser is the existent
soul. The Human soul must precede the Divine soul.

The existent soul is one whole, but the Human is its lesser
aspect and the Divine its highest aspect. It follows that self-
consciousness is Human in quality and characteristics before
it is Divine. As all parts are in the whole, such quota of Soul
as belongs to the Mineral, Vegetable, and Animal natures are
in Human nature, and Human nature is the Human soul, or
whole, that is to find and appropriate the Divine.

This work of finding and putting on the Divine can be
done by no part, by nothing less than the whole, and through
the Power of the Whole. No fraction can, by any possibility,
make itself the unit. The whole can help to make manifest
its own highest possible aspect.

The Human soul stands to the Mineral, Vegetable and
Animal kingdoms, with all belonging to them3 as a whole to
its parts. It stands to Divinity as a whole to its own highest
potentiality.

No exercise of the power of choice can alter or suspend
the relation between it and its parts. Exercise of the power
of choice can help, or retard, the development of its highest
potentiality, the appropriation of Divinity.

Because the self-idea gives quality to the soul's incarna-
tion and embodiment, because the soul can think, or form,
contrary to natural tendency and mortal sense, if it chooses,
and thereby form a self-idea according to, instead of contrary
to, the truth of being, what the soul forms and embodies
volitionally can overcome what has been formed and embodied
unintentionally.

CHOICE. 171

Between the natural self-idea and embodiment, and the
Divine self-idea and embodiment stands the volitional work
of the soul, consequent upon its choice of what it will do;
this choosing consequent upon the power of choice becoming
active in the soul; this activity stimulated by the consequences
of the natural self-idea felt by the soul as something undesir-
able, of which it wishes to be rid.

This power of choice, the mightiest power in its conse-
quences for the existent soul, consequences impossible for the
creatures governed by instinct, puts Divinity within reach of
Humanity when what Personality is not has been learned.

From the Beginning to the End of Creation there can be
no break in the continuity compelled by the nature of First
Cause; but in the Existence that belongs between the Be-
ginning and the End must be a turning point, the place where
the existent soul turns from its own ignorant way to the
eternal way, abandons, its natural self -conception and forms
the immaculate conception, ceases to descend into the depths
of misbegot conditions and begins to rise into the eternal har-
mony with the Absolute that is both its right and privilege.

At this turning point begins the putting off of mortality
and the putting on of immortality, a work preceded by putting
away the false self-conception and intentionally forming and
holding the true one in its place. Exercise of the power of
choice makes of the existent soul an individual.

questions.

What is the first factor in the Impersonal order to which
belongs the power of choice?

What prevents Cause and Effect from being identical?

If Effect has likeness to its Cause, how can it be different
from the Cause?

172 CHOICE.

Are likeness and difference incompatible with each other?
Can the nature of the Effect be in any way contrary to
the nature of the producing Cause?

If the power of choice belongs to the nature of Derived
being, why does it not also belong to the Cause of that being,
if there is likeness between them?

Whence does the existent soul derive its powers?

Why is the existent soul the user of the powers of being?

Why has Derived being two sides, or aspects?

As compared with each other, which is the higher?

To which side belongs the power of choice?

With what nature in Existence will this power be manifest?

In Existence, who or what is it that chooses?

Why are there two aspects to the existent soul?

If Manifestation is the purpose of Existence which aspect
will first be manifest?

Is the Human soul the whole soul, or only a part?

Can any fraction attain to the possibilities of the whole?

What is the highest aspect of the existent soul?

Can the power of choice enable an animal to become a
human being?

Can the Human soul help, or retard, the fulfilment of
the Great Purpose?

If capable of co-operation with the Great Purpose how is
this co-operation given?

By what means is Divinity attainable by Humanity?

How are mortality and immortality related to Humanity
and Divinity?

Why are both descent and ascent natural to Existence?

Which naturally precedes the other?

CHAPTEE XLI.

The Personal Order.

An individual frees himself from dependence upon ex-
ternals and works out his own redemption from all evil by
co-operation with the Great Purpose, using his powers of
being to that end. His choice, and enlightened use of the
Forming power, set the Creative Power to work for him in-
stead of against him. In place of the undesirable they bring
to him what he intelligently desires, for what he desires he
thinks and thus forms. What is undesirable he does not
harbor mentally and hence does not form, and what is not
formed by him is not created for him.

In the impersonal order the Creative Power is first and
the Forming power is second. In the personal order, the
Formed is first and the Created is second.

The Forming power, as the activity of Derived being, is
the power to Think, but the existent soul as user of the power
is the active thinker, the active Former of all it experiences.
Consequently what it ceases to form ceases to be created for it.

As the Impersonal Order consists of the consecutively
related factors compelled by First Cause, the Personal Order
must be the reverse of the Impersonal Order. It must begin
at Existence, and follow on to First Cause along the line of
these factors.

First Cause

*°»****i

°tdef

.Existent soul.

174 THE PERSONAL ORDER.

The Impersonal Order is the logical descent to Incarna-
tion and Existence. The Personal Order is the as logical
ascent of Self-consciousness and Embodiment. Cumulative
recognition of all contained in the Impersonal Order leads
finally to recognition of First Cause — seeing God face to face.

Recognition is first natural, and then spiritual; is first
through mortal sense, then through the faculties of being,
the spiritual recognition being corrective of the natural
recognition.

The Impersonal Order is both universal and individual;
the Personal Order is individual before it is universal.

The eternally Created and the eternally Formed have
place in the Impersonal Order; the temporarily formed and
created have place in the Personal Order and precede its per-
manently formed and created.

The mistaken self-idea and its embodiment, though hav-
ing place in the Personal Order, are temporal in nature be-
cause contrary to the truth pushing to manifestation. They
are succeeded by the true self -idea and its embodiment which
must be perpetual because like unto the eternal.

In the Personal Order the soul re-presents the Original
Idea of Infinite Mind when it presents that Idea to itself;
when it forms the true concept of being. After forming or
presenting it to itself, this Idea is created for the soul as the
Reality to the soul.

The Personal Order is in strict conformity with the Im-
personal Order though moving in the reverse direction.

All that the Impersonal Order includes is for the soul as
its inheritance. All that the Personal Order includes is for
the soul as the Actuality.

Not till the Actuality becomes the eternal Reality is the
Personal Order complete.

The making of the Individual belongs to the Personal

THE PERSONAL ORDER. 175

Order. Enlightened use of the power to Think is necessary
to the making of the Individual.

The perfected Individual is the end of the Personal Order.
By the Personal Order the perfected Individual stands at-one
with the Impersonal God, the Beginning of Creation, this
at-one-ment constituting the Personal God.

QUESTIONS.

What pertains to an individual as his work to be done?
What constitutes the Impersonal order?
What is the Personal order?
What is the relation of one to the other?
Which is first, the Impersonal or the Personal?
How do " Created " and " Formed " stand to each other
in the Impersonal order?

How in the Personal order? Which is first, and which
second?

In which order is found individual recognition?

Can the Impersonal be a living truth except it be
recognized ?

Can anything of which you are not conscious exist
for you?

Can you know the things of God till you are able to recog-
nize them?

Can there be a God for you till you can recognize a God?

Can the Beginning appear to you till you are able to dis-
cern the Beginning?

Can you see what the End shall be before you are able
to recognize the Beginning?

Can you understand the nature of Existence till you are
able to recognize the Great Purpose?

176 THE PERSONAL ORDER.

Can this Purpose appear to you till you are able to discern
Impersonal Principle as Beginning?

May there be a temporarily created in the Personal order?
If so, how?

When will there be, in the Personal order, a permanently
formed and created?

In which order is found Reality?

What is the difference between Reality and Actuality?

Can Actuality become Reality? If so, how?

What is the difference between a human being at the be-
ginning of Existence, and the perfected Individual at the end
of Existence?

What is the final at-one-ment?

Is the Personal God possible without at-one-ment?

Is the existent soul able to work both for and against this
at-one-ment?

When will it work for it?

> of the Existent Soul.

CHAPTER XLII.

The Soul Stages or States op Existence.

Though Existence, as the Personal Order, is an unbroken
whole, it may be divided into seven stages — into less or more,
logically, but into seven for convenience. These stages may
be named as follows:

The Infancy

The Childhood

The Boyhood

The Youth

The Early Manhood

The Middle Age

The Matured Manhood .

These stages are analogous to the orderly growth of the
oak tree from the acorn, which growth is by successive stages
to maturity. As they apply to the whole of Existence, and
as the law of the whole must be the law of the part, each
stage will have its seven stages, its infancy and maturity with
what lies between.

This division and subdivision may have infinite extension,
theoretically, yet its law and order remain the same. Though
extended to a multiplicity beyond the grasp of present human
realization the law and order may remain within human ap-
prehension. It is sufficient for our purpose to follow the seven
stages of the existent soul as they succeed each other, the
" seven ages of man " that manifest the nature and possibili-
ties of the Primal Genus.

12 177

178 TEE SOUL STAGES OR STATES OF EXISTENCE.

These stages of Existence may be called states of self-
consciousness, each of which has its infancy and manhood.
The second state can not follow the first state till the first
has matured; not till the second has matured can the third
follow. This necessity must apply to all the states.

The maturity, the coming to an end of any one state, is
not evidence that Existence has come to an end. On the con-
trary, because of the governing Principle, it is evidence that
another, and subsequent, state is in connection with the one
that ends. The maturity of the first state must lead to, be
conjoined to, the infancy of the next state, and so on through-
out the continuity of Existence.

Observation of infancy and childhood shows a continuity
from one to the other, no gap or break between them; which
fact compels that childhood grows or develops within infancy,
coming forth from it at the right time.

Kowhere is growth seen as something exterior which
finally attaches itself to the thing needing growth. All
growth, all succession of higher capabilities and possibilities
is from within — is first within, supplanting gradually the
lesser in which it developed. Youth follows childhood, and
manhood, youth, in the same way.

So Existence, as made up of varying states, must be an
unbroken continuous whole, with no gaps or breaks between
infancy and maturity; but all the states must be involved in
and developed from the first one — infancy; one supplanting
the other as time goes on. This view does not compel many
different souls in one individual existence, but varying phases
of one existent soul, instead. If these seven stages are com-
pelled by the need for Manifestation, if they are natural
rather than permitted by a power that could prevent them,
their relation and continuity does not depend upon the On-
looker, and with his five senses alone he will not see and know

THE SOUL STAGES OR STATES OF EXISTENCE. 179

them. If the faculties of being are to follow the senses, if
sense-impressions are first and perceptions come afterward, the
range of the sensuous is limited as compared to the range of
perception, and all these states cannot come within the range
of the limited, for as, in their ascent, they manifest the higher
spiritual they must pass beyond it. " Flesh and blood can
not inherit the kingdom of heaven." It follows, then, that
although existence is a continuity including variety, only such
portion of this variety as belongs normally within the range
of the sensuous can be known as the sensuous. All the rest
must be known by other means, and as complete self-knowl-
edge is to be attained by existence it can be gained but in a
limited degree on the plane of the sensuous. As the World,
and what belongs to it as its own variety, constitutes the Rep-
resentation in Creation, the human Person will represent by
its changes this succession of states of self -consciousness. The
human Person will have its infancy and growth to maturity,
showing the seven stages of one state of self -consciousness, the
natural or first state that is the infancy of the soul ; and these
seven stages of one state will be contained within the range
of sensuous recognition. But this range can not include the
subsequent states that must stretch far beyond its boundaries.

QUESTIONS.

Can a state of existence be the whole of Existence?

Is a state of existence governed by the law that governs
the whole of Existence, or by a different law? If so, what is
it and what is its origin?

Is growth orderly and progressive? If so, why?

Is the human Person fixed, or changeable?

As an outline, or shape, is it changed in outline by ex-
tension?

180 THE SOUL STAGES OB STATES OF EXISTENCE.

Is there any difference between an infant Person and a
man Person except in size?

As the limit of human Representation, is it changed when
the marks of old age succeed the marks of infancy?

Does human Person ever change to something that is not
human Person, whatever is written upon it?

If Existence is a series of states of self-consciousness, are
they exterior or interior to each other?

If they are interior to each other, when do they appear, or
become objective?

Is the end, or maturity, of a state of self -consciousness, the
end of Existence ?

What is the difference between the beginning and end
of a state of self -consciousness?

What is the difference between the beginning and end of
Existence ?

Is the beginning and end of Existence, the Beginning and
End of Creation?

What compels the continuity of the states of self -conscious-
ness constituting Existence, and prevents any break between
them?

Does a man die, or cease to be, and then again begin to be?

Does not this view compel disconnected states of existence?

If states of existence are disconnected what determines the
beginning of a second state when the first is terminated?

If through all states the Soul persists and appears at the
end of Existence, is not the Great Purpose fulfilled?

CHAPTER XLIIL

Duration of the Human Person.

The question arises, How far in these successive stages of
Existence is the Human Person carried? Or, Does the human
Person which, in connection with the existent soul, constitutes
Personality, continue to be thus connected all through the
stages of Existence? If not, at what point is it dropped?

If the human Person as a natural phenomenon belongs to
a stage of Existence, a state of self -consciousness only, then it
will be left behind when the soul emerges from this state to
a successive state. If it belongs to Existence as a whole then
it will be carried by the soul through all states.

As a factor in the Impersonal Order, Re-presentation has
eternal place. In the reverse, or Personal Order it must also
belong, but, owing to the nature of the soul and its use of the
faculties and powers of being, there will be change from a
sensuous to a mental representation.

In other words, what is seen as a physical shape will be-
long to the first stage of Existence, but will not belong to all
stages of Existence because the faculties of being becoming
active in the soul will provide a substitute and render it un-
necessary.

Environment being the means for natural impression upon

the soul, and impression being the stimulus for the reaction

that is the soul's conclusion about the impression, the Personal

Order that begins with the objective in space and leads to and

beyond a mental re-presentation, is begun; consequently the

181

182 DURATION OF THE HUMAN PERSON.

natural object in space will not outlast the state of self -con-
sciousness to which it naturally belongs. Necessary at the
beginning of Existence, becoming unnecessary when a substi-
tute is provided, it will constitute the " remains " of the state
of self-consciousness to which it has normal relation.

Response to impression becomes response to the self -idea,
the mental representation that takes the place for the existent
soul of the sensuous representation.

The naturally objective part of Personality will represent
however, before it is cast off normally, the successive changes
from infancy to maturity that belong to a part because they
pertain to the whole. There is seen, therefore, by the On-
looker, what it calls infancy, childhood, boyhood, youth, early
manhood, middle age and old age, for this successive change
is normal to the state of sense-existence; yet what is thus seen
does not necessarily constitute the like successive change for
Existence as a whole. The infancy and growth to maturity
of a state of self-consciousness can be but as a vestibule to
what lies beyond.

The forsaking of the sensuous object — usually called the
body — by the soul is not evidence of the cessation of Existence
but rather of its continuity; for it is but the abandonment of
the no longer essential.

Sensuous existence becoming mental existence leads on to
spiritual existence and Divine existence, as the self-idea due
to natural impression is abandoned for the true self-idea due
to action of the faculties of being — to perception and under-
standing of what governing Principle compels.

To sum up : Because Person is a factor in the Impersonal
Order it is eternal and will accompany the progress of the
existent soul to the End. What is seen as the human person
in the first state of existence, the sensuous state, will come to
an end with that state.

DURATION OF THE HUMAN PERSON. 183

QUESTIONS.

In which order is Person first found as a legitimate factor ?

As this factor, is it eternal or temporal?

If the Personal order is the reverse of the Impersonal
order, will this factor be created, or found, in the Personal
order?

What constitutes Personality?

What part of Personality changes?

If the existent soul grows, or develops, where is its growth
first registered ?

Which re-presentation will remain with the soul as it de-
velops? The sensuous, or the mental?

Does the object belonging to the soul's Kindergarten neces-
sarily accompany the soul in its higher states?

Must the blackboard and chalk forever abide with the
student of mathematics because they served a purpose when
he was a beginner?

Does the student who has sufficient understanding to work
his problems mentally, require the exterior stimuli?

How is a mental re-presentation seen? With the senses,
or with the faculties?

Is it of no consequence because it is interior instead of
appearing as exterior?

Which is of most use to the soul? The idea it forms, or
the object which was the stimulus for the idea?

For the mathematician may not the blackboard and chalk,
at first useful, constitute a " remains " to be left behind?

What constitutes the " remains " to be left behind by the
soul?

184 DURATION OF THE HUMAN PERSON.

Can the disintegration of the remains prevent or affect the
further progress of the soul?

What is the naturally objective part of Personality?

Why is the successive change from infancy to old age seen
in one state of self -consciousness ?

Is leaving the remains behind when the old age of a state
is reached, abnormal or normal?

Name the four qualifications of Existence. Which is first
in order?

CHAPTEE XLIV.

The Eelation of Person to Embodiment.

It will be seen that the stages of Existence or states of self-
consciousness are necessarily interior to, or are potential in, the
first — the natural state. Constituting the ascent that is the
Personal Order they follow each other as the interior rather
than the exterior life, and are measured, not by fixed periods
of time but by order of development.

If the Nature-Body is the receptacle for Embodiment, the
formation within the Nature-Body of a body is the necessary
consequence; a body which must be, in quality, according to
the self -consciousness embodied.

It will be seen, then, that the Human Person, or the Shape
enclosing Cosmic Matter, together constituting the Nature-
Body, is the mold for the formation of a body for the ex-
istent soul, one that is made in existence. This body, of course,
conforms to the outline of the mold and if taken from the!
mold retains its impress.

In the mold for formation of body, Nature provides the

existent soul with what is requisite for an embodiment. As

the self -idea gives quality to self -consciousness the kind of body

formed within the mold will be according to the self -idea. As

the quality of the self -idea is optional with the soul, after the

nature of its natural self-idea has become manifest to it, it

follows that the making of a higher quality of body is optional;

that " as a man thinketh so is he."

This formation within the mold will have its exterior and

185

186 THE RELATION OF PERSON TO EMBODIMENT.

interior, its objective and subjective, its normally seen and
unseen in the first stage of existence.

The mold itself as the Nature-body is the receptacle first
for the integration or embodiment of mortal sense-conscious-
ness and afterward for the true or spiritual self -consciousness.
As the last is interior rather than exterior to the first, the
higher embodiment will be interior rather than exterior to the
other; an order that compels the disintegration, rather than
the perpetuity, of the first body formed in the mold.

The normally seen or objective aspect of the first embodi-
ment will be the " dust of the ground " or physical body that
accords with sense standards of weight and measurement; the
unseen, and subjective aspect, will be the less tangible quality
of self -consciousness, or kind of soul, embodied.

The objective or physical body as fixed formation will be
incapable of change to another quality though presenting in
miniature the successive stages that belong to Existence as a
whole. It will have its infancy and maturity with all that
lies between, these followed by its disintegration.

The subjective or psychic body will have its infancy and
maturity with all that lies between, will put off and put on
quality by quality till it has risen to the requirements of the
true self -idea, till it is the embodiment of the Likeness of God.

This embodied Likeness will retain the pattern according
to which it has been formed — Human Person — without re-
taining any quality capable of disintegration; and, as the Body
of the Personal God, it will be eternal.

QUESTIONS.

What determines how long a state of self -consciousness
endures ?

What is the difference between Body and a body?

THE RELATION OF PERSON TO EMBODIMENT. 187

Which belongs to the Impersonal order, or is fundamental?

Can there be a species except there be, first, a genus?

May there be kinds of Embodiment? If so, why?

What determines the quality of a body?

What is the difference between bodies?

Where is a body formed?

What determines its shape or outline?

What is the origin of the mold for formation of body?

Is it natural or unnatural for the formation to conform
to the mold?

Is a kind, or quality, of body optional with the soul? If
so, how?

Is the mold visible or invisible in the state of sense-
consciousness ?

Is the body for that state formed in the mold, visible or
invisible, or both?

What is the difference between the physical body and the
psychic body?

Which survives the other?

Which can be weighed and measured as the tangible?

Is the other unreal and non-existent because intangible
to the senses?

What compels that there be a psychic body?

Can the disintegration of the physical body necessarily de-
stroy the intangible body?

If disintegration of the physical body does not destroy the
psychic body, what sustains that body?

Can the psychic body change in quality? If so, how?
; What is the highest kind of a body?

What determines the highest quality of embodiment?

188 TEE RELATION OF PERSON TO EMBODIMENT.

If the mold for formation of body is fundamental in
Creation, will any kind of body differ from the mold in outline?

What quality of body can alone be perpetual?

If but one quality of body can be perpetual must not all
lesser qualities, without exception, eventually disintegrate?

Has the Personal God, body?

If so, how is this body obtained?

CHAPTEK XLV.
Integration and Disintegration.

As Formation is the necessary precedent for Creation in the
Personal Order, Integration precedes Disintegration, though
they go hand in hand through Existence. The Primal Energy
which, through Existence, completes its circuit is, in Existence,
both preserver and destroyer. It preserves by integration and
destroys by disintegration through the direct worker in Ex-
istence, the existent soul.

All that is merely natural is first integrated, all that is
possible is finally integrated. This higher integration compels
a disintegration, emptying the mold of what has first been
formed in it. This dropping from Formation through bring-
ing more into Formation, a putting off by putting on, belongs
to the Personal Order and is volitional with the soul which
works out thereby its salvation from error and its consequences.

To make the eternal body, the Individual Embodiment of
the Absolute, the natural body must die. Though the inte-
gration constituting the natural body has been ignorantly and
unintentionally made it is nevertheless the body of sin whose
end is death, a death belonging to both its objective and sub-
jective aspects, a death that is the disintegration of both.

If the formation of the highest kind of body is the pos-
sibility for the existent soul, if volitional use of the Creative
Energy is necessary to that end, by this volitional use in the
higher direction it will be withdrawn from activity in the

lower direction. This withdrawal will be followed by the

189

190 INTEGRATION AND DISINTEGRATION.

disintegration of previous embodiment because its kind or
quality will be no longer created, the self-idea bestowing the
quality being abandoned.

The simultaneous integration and disintegration accom-
panying the states of existence may go on behind the veil of
■4 the flesh as a change in the subjective body, while the outer
aspect, that which meets the senses, remains, to all appearance
unchanged; and this outer, or sense-body, may disintegrate
only when the old age or maturity of the first state has natu-
rally arrived.

Through the putting on and putting off carried on by the
existent soul, and that is the work belonging to the Personal
Order, all belonging to the Impersonal order is brought to
embodiment. This is a practical gathering to itself by the
existent soul of all that Creation includes, the bringing of the
universal into the individual and particular, the Infinite into
the Finite; for the highest Soul-Embodiment is the Finite as
compared with the Infinite Principle that is Absolute, though
it is infinite as compared with the preceding qualities of body.

Throughout the soul-stages constituting states of existence
the death that is disintegration of the temporal must go on
through the higher and higher integration of the eternal till
the Body of the Personal God is reached as the End of Crea-
tion. This Body will wear the impress of the Human Person,
the impress of the mold in which it was formed, though it
is destitute, through disintegration, of all qualities belonging
only to sense-existence.

The original Nature-Body, bounded still by its natural
outline, Person, purified of all unlikeness to the Beginning
that has been previously integrated in it, containing the Like-
ness that has been afterward integrated by the help of the
volitional work of the existent soul, will accompany the ma-
tured soul that is the End of Creation.

INTEGRATION AND DISINTEGRATION. 191

QUESTIONS.

In the Personal order which is first, Integration or Dis-
integration? And why?

Do Integration and Disintegration belong to the Imper-
sonal order? If not, why not?

What power compels both Integration and Disintegration?

What is the worker directly concerned with Integration
and Disintegration?

What is to be integrated?

What is to be disintegrated?

What is the natural body?

What gives this body its quality?

In the way of integration, what is the possibility for the
existent soul?

What is necessary to the accomplishment of this possi-
bility?

Is there both involuntary and voluntary integration? If
so, why?

If there be voluntary integration what will be its effect
upon the previous involuntary integration?

May integration and disintegration be simultaneous? If
so, why?

If voluntary integration is accompanied by disintegration
of what has been involuntarily integrated, will this disinte-
grating be visible to the outer senses?

What is the difference between the sense-body and the
inner body?

Can all contained in the Impersonal order be brought to
Embodiment?

192 INTEGRATION AND DISINTEGRATION.

What stands between the Impersonal order and Embodi-
ment, as the worker for Embodiment?

Why does all that constitutes Being, belong to the Im-
personal order?

Why does all that constitutes Manifestation belong to the
Personal order?

Can the Infinite be brought into the Finite? If so, how?
Comparing God, and the Embodiment of Grod, with each
other, which is the Infinite and which the Finite?

Which is the Absolute, and which the Relative?

Comparing the highest embodiment with an approximate
embodiment, which is absolute and which relative?

Can a state of self-consciousness once matured, fall back
to a previous lesser state?

Can an embodiment once accomplished fall back to, or
become, a lower quality of embodiment?

Is retrogression or progression the order of Creation?

Will, or will not, the highest embodiment wear the im-
press of the mold provided for Embodiment?

Will the mortal sense quality pertaining to natural em*
bodiment be found in the highest embodiment? If not,
why not?

What constitutes purification of soul and body?

CHAPTEK XLVL

Indestkuctibility of Mattee.

If the Impersonal Order contains sequential factors that
are fixed, or changeless, in nature, nothing occurring in the
Personal Order can change or destroy one of them. The
ascent of the existent soul to the Beginning, must be, first,
a coming to, and then a coming over, each and all of them,
that leaves them behind.

As the Impersonal Order is the order of the eternal, and
the Personal Order is the order of the temporal, through the
relation of the temporal to the eternal there are possibilities
to and for the existent soul that do not pertain to any of the
factors in the eternal order. It may experience what is im-
mediately connected with one factor, pass beyond it to a sub-
sequent experience and leave it behind.

It is necessary to distinguish between Matter and mate-
riality. Cosmic Matter as a factor in the eternal order must
be eternal. Its amount — the word is a term of accommoda-
tion, rather than a descriptive term — can be neither added to
nor diminished. As contained within the circumference of
Derived being it must be always the same.

But as the basic material within Shape, having place at
the threshold of Existence, it contains the embodiment made
by the existent soul; which embodiment, in its first stage or
degree, gives materiality to Matter. It follows that while
Matter is indestructible, materiality is destructible, capable
of disintegration; and through, the continuous process of in-
13 193

194 INDESTRUCTIBILITY OF MATTER.

tegration and disintegration materiality for the soul will
eventually cease.

Modern science affirms the indestructibility of matter
without distinguishing between Matter and materiality, an all-
important difference. Materiality is what is ignorantly, there-
fore unconsciously, made by the existent soul for itself and
is experienced by itself. It is to be unmade as the soul ascends
to Origin. It can not be carried all the way through to the
Beginning, even though Matter is eternal.

A sense of self as material, resulting in a material em-
bodiment within Cosmic Matter, must sometime give way to
a spiritual sense of self which will result in a spiritual em-
bodiment, also within Cosmic Matter; this Matter remaining
the same in the one case as in the other.

It follows that the highest embodiment, or the highest
possible quality of body, will be within the same Cosmic
Matter that awaited the soul at the beginning of Existence;
a body accomplished through the elimination of the unfit and
the integration of all necessary to such body.

Environment, as the phenomenal World visible to the ex-
istent soul, takes quality from the soul-quality that is On-
looker, and corresponds to the sense of self. While materiality
is the dominant quality of the sense of self Environment will
remain material. When spirituality has become the dominant
quality Environment will have become spiritual also.

Continuous embodiment, though with changing quality,
in changeless Cosmic Matter belongs to the Personal Order.
Thus, is " the Word made flesh." Materiality is mortal sense
made flesh. It is the veil that hides from the senses subse-
quent integration and disintegration.

A material world is seen by the existent soul. The Matter-
World is not seen objectively by the infant existent soul;
only what is embodied in the Matter- World appears, until,

INDESTRUCTIBILITY OF MATTER. 195

through the exercise of the faculties of being, the true Matter-
World in contrast to Materiality, is revealed.

The true Matter- World — Kepresentation — is eternal.
What is first involuntarily embodied in Representation is
temporal. Ponderability and density belong to Materiality,
not to Matter.

QUESTIONS.

What are the possibilities of the existent soul?

Is the traveler found in the Impersonal or in the Per-
sonal order?

What does the traveler encounter?

Is Cosmic Matter eternal, or temporal, and why?

What is the circumference of Cosmic Matter?

Does Cosmic Matter precede Existence, or is it created
in Existence?

What is the difference between Cosmic Matter and ma-
teriality?

Is materiality created in Existence, or does it precede
Existence?

What is the origin of materiality?

Has the soul power over materiality? If so, how, and
to what end?

Can the soul alter or destroy Cosmic Matter?

How does a sense of self become fixed? Or, how is it
registered?

What gives quality to Environment?

How is brought about a change in the quality of En-
vironment?

Is embodying a series of interruptions, or is it continuous ?

196 INDESTRUCTIBILITY OF MATTER.

What do you understand by " And the Word was made
flesh " ?

Is there more than one kind of " flesh " or body? If
so, why?

Is Cosmic Matter dense and visible, or transparent and
invisible to our present sense of sight?

Is materiality an inherent quality of Matter, or a sense
of our own?

CHAPTEE XLVII.
Sin, Sickness and Death.

If sin be the cause of sickness and if sickness be the cause
of death, death is removable by the destruction of its cause,
sickness is removable by the same means.

If these three " foes of mankind " constitute a trinity in
unity successful attack upon them is made at one point, upon
the first in the trinity.

If sickness be dis-ease, that which is against ease, or that
which is contrary to harmony and order, its cause is some-
thing which does not belong to the harmony of Impersonal
order. If something is brought into existence that did not
exist till it was brought in, the existent soul must be con-
cerned with it.

We have seen that original sin is departure from the truth
of being in the soul's conception of self, this original sin
begetting, through the law of cause and effect, its legitimate
consequences — sickness and death, or dis-ease and destruction.
Disease as a genus may have wide variety of species — many
kinds of disease; but however any or all kinds may appear
to, and be named by, the sense-consciousness, it has its natural
limitations and can not continue throughout Existence, ap-
pearing at the End of Creation.

Each and every disorder must be self -limited, limited by
and according to its nature and origin. As the Human qual-
ity is first in the order of existence, these disorders or diseases

are encountered in the early stages of human existence and

197

198 8IN, 8ICKNESS AND DEATH.

are limited to those stages, being overcome and left behind
as the Divine quality is brought into existence.

They are included in the putting off that accompanies
the putting on of Likeness to the Absolute. From having
been integrated they are disintegrated; brought to embodi-
ment they become disembodied as the volitional work of the
existent soul is carried forward. What is brought into Ex-
istence, as foreign to the Great Purpose, is put out of Ex-
istence when the soul's purpose is brought into conformity
to the Great Purpose.

"When the mistaken self-idea is abandoned, when disease
and death are no longer formed by the existent soul, they
will no longer be created for the soul.

If natural to the infancy of the existent soul as the con-
sequence of its conception of self, how far will they be carried
along in subsequent states of self -consciousness?

They will endure as long as they are formed and created,
they can be carried no farther. The true self-idea and the
conditions it engenders will displace the earlier conditions be-
cause the new ones will be formed and created.

The change from the natural to the spiritual that is a
thorough re-generation of conditions in Existence is not ac-
complished in a day, but the change in self-conception that
leads to this re-generation may take place in a moment, though
the experience that has led to it may have continued for years.

It follows that if dis-ease in all its forms is removable
through extermination of its root cause, the death resulting
from disease will cease, while the death that is the limitation
of a state continues. To die of a fever will become obsolete,
but the natural limitation of the state of sense-consciousness
will continue, without having, however, power to deceive
the soul.

The objective aspect of natural embodiment that is called

SIN, SICKNESS AND DEATH. 199

the physical body will continue to be left where it belongs
as " the remains "; but the occasion of the soul's detachment
from it will not always be named as an illness or disease.

Because the Impersonal Order compels there will be,
always, for each existent soul a time for detachment from
the physical body, or, a time to die; but there will be, also,
a time for the soul, because the Personal Order compels, when
it knows it does not die, though it leave " remains " in its
onward journey; when it knows that it leaves "remains"
not only on the physical but on the psychic plane, as it jour-
neys toward the spiritual and Divine.

Fear of sickness and death will lessen and die out as
knowledge of true being and the Great Purpose is gained by
the existent soul. Victory over them will be established as
this knowledge is applied by the soul to the circumstances
and conditions of daily life.

Every form of dis-ease is named by the Onlooker. Names
originate in Existence, in its first state. According to what
the names mean to the soul is their power over the soul. They
make impression which begets consequences after its kind.
Its seed is in itself.

All forms of dis-ease are manifestations of what Man is
not, of what a mistaken self -idea is, whether they be classified
as physical, mental, or moral. All are in the soul, however
their manifestation may be named, before they appear in
embodiment.

Whatever may be temporarily in the soul can not change
the nature of the soul, for this is due to First Cause. What-
ever may be temporarily included in self -consciousness, giving
it quality, can not permanently remain when the soul by
higher knowledge supplants it with something better.

Diseases must be destroyed from the within out, if their
disappearance shall be an extermination. This course is com-

200 SIN, SICKNESS AND DEATH.

pelled by the relation of the Personal Order to the Imper-
sonal Order. It follows that dis-ease can be carried beyond
" the remains " though the name belonging to the first state
be left behind with them; will be carried farther and cause
disquiet in " the next world " if the work of disintegration
has not been begun in this one. For the universal tendency
to create, as reality for the soul, that which it first forms for
itself, compels such result.

The trinity, sin, sickness and the death that belongs to
them, injected into the first state of self -consciousness, should
constitute part of the remains left behind by the soul as it
moves on. In their sensuous aspect they are left behind. The
one who dies of dyspepsia has left dyspepsia behind, so far
as it is a physical condition, but not, necessarily, the psychic
substance of the name and condition. This must remain in
the self -consciousness, or in the soul and its subjective body,
until it is disintegrated and cast out.

If this work has not been done during the time of the
physical body it still waits to be done, for embodiment must
be purged of all that defiles before the Likeness can be em-
bodied.

Because the root from which grows the- tree of disease
bearing the fruit of death is sin, because sin is natural, they
are natural; but because sin can be abandoned by the soul
once it is found to be sin, the tree and its fruit can " be hewn
down and cast into the fire "; a work which has two aspects,
the physical and the metaphysical or psychical.

QUESTIONS.

What is the remote, or fundamental, cause of sickness?
Why do sin, sickness, and death, constitute a trinity in
unity?

SIN, SICKNESS AND DEATH. 201

Where is this trinity found? In the Impersonal order,
or in the Personal order?

Can any one of the factors in the Impersonal order, sin,
sicken, and die?

If sin, sickness, and death can come to an end, are they
mortal, or immortal?

Are they in accord with, or contrary to, the harmony of
being?

Is the Great Purpose to be carried out in Existence in
accord with, or contrary to, the harmony of being?

Is dis-ease in accord with, or contrary to, the Great
Purpose?

What is the origin of dis-ease?

If dis-ease is a genus, are its species, or forms of disease,
limited in number?

Whence come the names given to forms of disease?

Who is responsible for their classification?

Are any diseases self -named?

What gives names to all things?

Is dis-ease infinite in power, extent, and duration, or is
it self -limited ?

If dis-ease, in any form, is an interloper in human affairs,
what determines how long it shall remain?

Has the existent soul aught to do with the removal of
this interloper?

Why do diseases appear in embodiment?

How are they removed from the body?

Are diseases formed before they are created, or are they
created before they are formed?

Is dis-ease limited to one state of consciousness?

202 SIN, SICKNESS AND DEATH.

Even though names of forms of disease be confined to
one state, does this prevent any and all discomfort and discord
in subsequent states?

How are conditions in Existence brought to an end?

Is re-generation of conditions possible? If so, how?

Can the death resulting from disease be overcome?

Is death from disease normal, or abnormal?

Is death as the natural termination of a phase of con-
sciousness, normal or abnormal?
Is there need to fear death?
Is normal death an end to living, or a door to wider living?

Will " the remains " from normal or abnormal death be
the same?

Does the progress of the existent soul necessitate other
than physical remains?

Has every object its subjective side or aspect?
What is the best preparation for the avoidable death?
What for the inevitable death?
Is dis-ease confined to the physical plane?
Is its manifestation, when understood, a help or a hin-
drance ?

Can dis-ease in any form alter the fundamental nature of
the soul? If not, why not?

What does dominion over all things, include?

CHAPTEE XLYIII.

Theeapeutics.

Lack of harmony in Existence, discord and strife, disease
and pain instead of harmony, create a demand for healing.
Temporary loss of health through misconception of being and
Existence, leads to desire and demand for health, which, when
gained, is but restoration; for health is the birthright of the
soul, is the soul's right in consequence of its nature and Origin.

Health belongs to the Personal Order. It is the realiza-
tion by the soul of the nature and harmony of the Impersonal
Order. This realization brought to embodiment is health,
manifest.

Between the eternal truth that is the Impersonal Order,
and the attained and embodied truth that is the end of the
Personal Order, is the temporary loss of health that consti-
tutes the pain-ful experience of the existent soul.

Though the soul is unchanged in itself by whatever is
formed and created for it, and endows it with a quality, it
needs to be healed of its dis-eases, needs help to expel the
cause of its troubles, be purged of its disorders. Healing is
for the soul first and for the body afterward, but owing to
self-deception it is demanded for the body first and for the
soul afterward, if at all.

For the same reason the help is first sought in the with-
out and only after failure to find it, usually, is it sought in
the within.

The mistaken self-idea — " This that I see is I, myself "

203

204 THERAPEUTICS.

— leads to search in, and dependence upon, externals, the
things pertaining to Environment. The effort is legitimate
to the concept that induces it. Corrective medicine is found
in things before it is found in thoughts; effort is made to cure
the body before it is made to medicine the soul.

But the therapeutic art must follow, necessarily, an as-
cending scale, from grossest possible means of cure to the
subtlest and most intangible, passing from administration by
another to administration by one's self.

Effort to empty the self-consciousness of what has been
brought into it through self-deception, to disintegrate the body
of error that has been made in the mold, is the preliminary
essential to restoration of what has been lost sight of — Health.

But trial of all methods and means of cure allied with the
natural self -idea, precede the higher method that is in accord
with the Great Purpose. As impression from Environment
awaits the human soul at the beginning of Existence, and its
reaction to impression follows, it will respond to impression
made by externals when they are used as a means of curer
none of these means being sufficient always to prevent death.

When experience has brought the soul to enlightenment,
when the higher faculties of being become active in the soul
and it turns from externals to the within, using the Forming
power as a means to impress Health upon itself, it will re-
spond also to this impression. But though response to this
impression will eventually exterminate the death resulting
from disease because it will exterminate all forms of disease,
it will not exterminate the death that is the natural accom-
paniment of a state of consciousness.

This death will be destroyed by no system of therapeutics
for it would mean the overthrow of Nature. Destruction of
the other kind of death through extermination of its root
cause is the vindication of Nature.

THERAPEUTICS. 205

Progress for the Human soul means progress from bondage
to externals induced by self-deception, to the freedom of other
and higher states of self-consciousness through development
and realization of the resources of Derived being.

The healing art belongs to this progress, the means em-
ployed, to the status of the soul. None are ethically wrong,
all are right or natural in their own day, in the period of time
when the soul is most responsive to the impression made by
each. All but one, the highest and best, are needless, and
unwise when the soul is responsive to this best.

The History of Medicine confirms this order. Years ago
the coarsest and most revolting means were used, means be-
longing entirely to the material plane except as they were
supplemented by the superstition that lives in the darkness
of ignorance and is killed by the light of truth. "With the
progress of time the gross quality of remedies has gradually
lessened and the light has become strong enough to reveal
remedies so subtle and intangible as to be invisible and known
by their effects rather than by sensuous observation.

Whatever the means employed both cure and death have
followed, and recovery from sickness, avoidance of death, have
been attributed to either good luck or God's mercy. ISTot till
a means of prevention as well as a means of cure is discov-
ered will either the luck or the mercy be dismissed from hu-
man thought as the refuge of an ignorance no longer excusable.

The best possible remedy is the one that prevents while it
cures, a combination that produces healing. Eventually the
soul must be master where it has been servant, otherwise the
Great Purpose can not be fulfilled. From being subject to
impression only it must be master of impression as well; able
to use it even while being used by it.

206 THERAPEUTICS.

QUESTIONS.

Is health for mankind the normal possibility, or the ab-
normal incident?

How is health lost and restored?

What is the soul's birthright, and why?

What is the difference between health in the abstract, and
manifested health?

What is Healing?

What needs Healing?

What is the right order of Healing?

Is dependence upon externals natural or foreign to our
conception of self?

Where shall truly corrective medicine be found?

Is it possible for one to be his own physician? If so, why
and how?

Why is the therapeutic art necessarily a progressive one?

To what end must effort for Healing be directed?

Does progress in Existence mean knowledge of the high-
est and best means of betterment, first?

If this were the case, could there be progress in knowl-
edge and experience?

Why may the use of any remedy, gross or intangible, be
followed by result?

Is the soul's natural response to impression a benefit or
a detriment?

If the soul can exercise the power of choice, choice of
impression, what follows?

What is the difference between using a power, and being
used by it?

THERAPEUTICS. 207

What will be the difference in results?

Can any system of therapeutics succeed in overthrowing
Mature ?

Which system must be the most satisfactory and endur-
ing? The one that works against the Great Purpose, or the
one that works with it?

What is the standard by which all systems, as wise or
unwise, must be judged?

Which is first in Existence, servitude or mastery?

CHAPTER XLIX.
Cubing and Healing.

The disappearance of a physical condition is not always
proof of the extermination of its cause. If it is possible to
cover one condition with another, the one covered remaining
in abeyance meanwhile, this kind of disappearance may be
easily mistaken for healing while it is only a temporary curing.

Healing must be based upon removal of cause; curing
may come from the concealment of cause — overlaying it with
something else. Curing will be first in the Personal Order
and Healing last.

Response to impression from without results in Curing,
response to the truth of being, in Healing.

A state or condition called health through misconception
of the nature of health, one that satisfies for the time being
the ignorant soul, hides true health while it satisfies, and
strengthens confidence in the means by which it has been
gained.

As true health can not be established for the soul by use
of external means only, as a change in the self-idea is a
primary essential, curing may be a temporary stumbling
block in the way of true healing.

Any means employed for the establishment of health
which does not penetrate to the root of dis-ease and prevent
it must inevitably fail to accomplish healing; for such means
can not lessen liability to dis-ease. As the soul is impressed
continuously by its own self-idea, results must be according

208 <

CURING AND HEALING. 209

to the nature or quality of the self-idea, and the strength of
the impression.

So long as the mistaken self-conception dominates the
soul, so long must the soul's susceptibility to the consequences
begotten of it, continue. If a change can be made in a physi-
cal condition by making an impression of health upon the
soul, this change will be permanent only if there be within
the soul itself a sure foundation for the impression. If it is
made by an extraneous influence alone, the impression can
not be permanent, therefore the physical change can not be
permanent.

Not till volition is concerned in the work of making the
impression — a work based upon a true conception of being
and existence begun and persistently continued by the soul
itself through its enlightened use of the Forming power — ■
can the true impression be made continuously; and only this
continuous impression can establish health by overcoming sus-
ceptibility to sense-impressions. Though susceptibility to
sense-impressions is natural to the soul, mastery of them is
also possible for the soul. Curing falls short of this mastery,
healing is its development.

Prevention can be accomplished only by the soul for it-
self. A subjective condition can be temporarily checked in
its manifestation by the influence of one over another. No
one can make a master of another, one can help another to
make himself a master. The hand of control must be laid
upon susceptibility to impression, the natural must be fol-
lowed by the possible before the preventive work that leads
to mastery of all that afflicts can be accomplished. Hence,
while at any time curers may abound, healers may be few.

14

210 CURING AND HEALING.

QUESTIONS.

What is the difference between Curing and Healing?

Is no feeling of illness and pain, proof of no liability to
illness and pain?

Is disease temporarily concealed, disease removed?

Is disease removed from experience till its hidden cause
is exterminated?

In human experience which is first, Curing or Healing?
Why?

Which is first seen by the existent soul? Environment or
Derived being?

Which does the soul know first?

What is the difference between true health and what the
soul may ignorantly call health?

May Curing sometimes stand as an obstacle to Healing?

If the soul is naturally susceptible to impression is there

any way of healing except by control of this susceptibility?

If change in condition can be made, what determines
whether this change shall be temporal or permanent?

What has individual volition to do with the work of
Healing?

What part is played by the Forming power in the work
of Healing?

Is sustained impression possible to the soul? If so, how?

Is sustained impression of health necessary to the estab-
lishment of health?

Will sustained impression of dis-ease maintain forms of
disease?

Is temporary relief worth the price of future pain?

CURING AND HEALING. 211

What determines the duration of suffering?
Does to " get well " always mean to " be in health " ?
Why does progress in Existence mean growth from de-
pendence to mastery?

Illustration of Natural Order.

Mind The being — Existent soul Person — body

\y \ v /

Thought \ /\ /

\ / \ /

\y \ /

The power to think \/

The thoughts one thinks.

Mind

Thought V Trinity in unity.

Idea — The being )

The being "^

The Forming power V Trinity in unity.

The Formed — Person )

Existent soul — the Thinker ~\

The thoughts of the Thinker V Trinity in unity.

Embodiment of the thoughts )

Three unities, containing, each, a trinity, in one Unity.
Creation is this inclusive Unity. Manifestation is the end
of Creation. Manifestation is to the Thinker — the Recog-
nizer— by means of embodiment.

CHAPTEE L.

Use of Auto-Suggestion for Healing.

If the soul is naturally susceptible to impression it is sure
to be ruled by the strongest impression. An impression may
be strengthened by repetition — must thus be strengthened.
Repeated impression becomes tendency, persistent tendency
becomes habit, habit is involuntary repetition of thought and
act, and it molds life.

If this order is naturally sequential, impression volitionally
made and repeated can become a fixed habit molding life for
good or ill according to the kind of impression. In this way
our concept of self becomes the practical or manifested self.

If this be true, self-healing is possible from the basis of
a change in the concept of self. To suggest the true concept
of being to ourselves is to impress it upon ourselves; to re-
peat the suggestion persistently till it becomes tendency, is
to form the habit of looking mentally upon true being and
its harmonious nature, which habit brings eventually realiza-
tion of the harmony as our quality of self -consciousness.

Because the thinking power is the Forming power, by
suggestion to ourselves of the true pattern, we form, accord-
ing to the pattern, what is subsequently created. Because
of this law and order what is suggested to us by another may
also be effective in proportion to our susceptibility to the kind
of impression, the persistence of its repetition, and our lack
of resistance to it.

But because we are continually using auto-suggestion,

212

USE OF AUTO-SUGGESTION FOB HEALING. 213

making constant impression upon ourselves, whether or no
the impression made by the suggestion of another becomes a
permanent habit depends upon our like, or contrary, self-
impression. If our self -impression agrees with the impression
made by another's suggestion, that other is strengthened and
has tendency toward perpetuity; if our self -impression con-
tradict it persistently impression from the other suggestion
must in time fade away.

Suggestion from another, though meant for Healing, can
give us Curing only, when it is not supported and strength-
ened by like self-suggestion; for persistent contrary self-
suggestion must eventually efface it.

Moreover, suggestion from another, meant for Healing,
can result only in Curing if it does not carry with it the
truth of being that must be impressed upon the soul before
this truth can show forth through embodiment in health and
harmony of life. Consequently the results of hypnotic sug-
gestion are self -limited.

The operator may make impression upon his subject, who
will respond to it. The strength of the impression will de-
pend upon susceptibility to the kind. The permanency of
the impression will depend upon the habitual auto-suggestion
of the subject. He can, and will, though unconsciously if he
does not understand, increase and strengthen, or counteract it.

JSTo operator can make the necessary suggestion for Heal-
ing unless he knows the difference between Healing and Cur-
ing. This knowledge is gained from an understanding of the
principles of being, the nature of the soul, Existence, Environ-
ment and Embodiment, and of the Great Purpose.

Without this understanding he is as a rudderless ship at
sea. Without it he can not co-operate with the Great Pur-
pose in his work for his subject, he can not impress the God-
Ideal upon the susceptible soul; but, on the contrary, if his

214 USE OF AUTO-SUGGESTION FOB HEALING.

own views and secret thoughts are contrary to the meaning
of the words he speaks to his subject, whether audibly or
mentally, they, too, will reach and impress the subject in
proportion to the leaning of the subject in the same direction.
And instances are not uncommon where the response from
a hypnotized subject to the unintentional suggestion of the
operator has been as spontaneous as to the intentional sug-
gestion.

It follows, therefore, that what one is within, or in char-
acter, is of great importance where the work of Healing is
concerned. What the operator is as a man or woman is of
quite as much importance as what he does in the way of
voluntary suggestion; for he always, even though involun-
tarily, suggests himself to his subject.

Auto-suggestion is at once the curse and the blessing for
the human race. It is both a devastating devil and a redeem-
ing angel for the human soul. It is involuntary, as an idea
and habit of thought that have become fixed. It is voluntary,
as an idea and trend of thought begun and maintained in-
tentionally. Whether involuntary or voluntary result fol-
lows auto-suggestion. The kind, or quality, of result must
be eventually according to the dominant suggestion.

If one is dominated by another, becomes the passive sub-
ject of an operator, makes a mental surrender in order to be
passive, he is susceptible to both the intentional and unin-
tentional suggestion of the operator. His resistance to the
undesirable suggestion is proportioned to the strength of his
own involuntary auto-suggestion; this strength depends upon
the character he has already developed.

Because Forming is followed by Creating every one may
become his own physician. The power that heals is always
at hand. Use, by the enlightened soul, of the power that
creates, redeems this soul from the bondage of inherited and

USE OF AUTO-SUGGESTION FOB HEALING. 215

involuntary tendencies, heals it of its disorders, brings it into
conscious harmonious relation to both Environment and God-
derived being; enables it to cast out its possessing devils.

Devils are cast out by bringing in angels. They can not
dwell together. Devils dwell in darkness, angels in light.
The difference between the darkened soul and the enlightened
soul is the difference between disease and health.

Nature and her governing Principle provide for the ex-
istent soul what it needs in its transformation from the natural
human to the possible divine. Utilization is the secret of
success. All is utilized in the steadfast employment of self-
suggestion according to the divine ideal. The End will be
like the Beginning.

REMARKS.

The fact that we think is due to Nature; what we think
is volitional. You must see that whether we think impulsively
or with enlightened discrimination, by thinking we form,
what we form is created unto us. To tell one's self the truth
of being — auto-suggestion — is to medicine this self, or soul,
purge it of the legion of possessing devils, bring it to its
" right mind."

Auto, or self, suggestion is the means native to every soul
whereby it is redeemed from all evil, a means unknown till
consequences incurred through ignorance impel the sufferer
to seek a way of escape; a means mighty in redemptive power
when found and used in the light of knowledge of being.

No intention on the part of the Infinite brings affliction
or removes it. The natural ignorance of the existent soul —
the infancy of the soiil — brings it; use by the enlightened
soul of foreordained means, removes it.

Responsibility for human woe has been placed for cen-
turies where it does not belong. God has been believed to

216 USE OF AUTO-SUGGESTION FOB HEALING.

be the intentional author who must be placated if it shall
disappear, a view that has made cowards of mankind. Sacri-
fices and offerings have been relied upon to the exclusion of
self-effort. Uprightness before God has meant prostration in
the dust, an exterior humility impelled by fear, manifested
most when we were threatened by disaster.

To place responsibility where it belongs, to bear it instead
of shirking it, is necessary for salvation. It is more neces-
sary to save the true God from the ignorance of man than
to save man from the wrath of God. The ascent of the Al-
mighty in human conception is an essential preliminary to the
ascent of man. Destruction of the characteristics ascribed in
human thought to God must precede destruction of suffering
and disease.

Not till man raises himself from the dust by recognition
of his birthright can he look upon God and live. Not till he
uses the birthright that is his power to make himself what he
will, can he put all enemies under his feet; and not till he
himself puts them there can he triumph over them. God
works with him or against him as he works for his own mis-
taken purpose or for the Great Purpose; and always God
is Love.

Stand erect, strong in the perception of your original
God-Likeness, in the resolve to do your part to bring it to
manifestation. Use your own Forming power to form for
yourself the immaculate conception. This Son of God shall
be begotten in you for the Creative Energy will create him.
He will save you from your former sins and their conse-
quences if you are faithful to him. Trust him, love him,
follow him, for he is your Saviour.

" God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his
Son. He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not
the Son of God hath not life."

USE OF AUTO-SUGGESTION FOR HEALING. 217

QUESTIONS.

What ensues when impression is made upon the soul?
How are habits formed?

Why are we — as natural existent souls — " creatures of
habit " ?

Are we morally responsible for our early habits?

If it be true that " as we think so we are," why is this so?

Why do we grow to be like our concept of self?

Is self-healing a possibility? If so, how?

Can we voluntarily form a desirable habit of thought?

What do you understand by auto-suggestion?

If we are susceptible to impression, can we, both wisely
and unwisely, impress ourselves?

Can the same possibility be for us both an enemy and a
friend? If so, why?

Can another's suggestion become our own habit of
thought? If so, why?

Can another's suggestion fail to become our habit of
thought? If so, why?

Can another's suggestion result in healing? If not, why
not?

Must we be dominated by others, or is there a way to avoid
such domination?

What effect has self-suggestion upon the impression made
by another's suggestion?

Is suggestion sufficient for healing, or does what is sug-
gested play an important part to that end?

What determines permanency of impression? What is the
necessary equipment for one who would heal?

218 USE OF AUTO-SUGGESTION FOR HEALING.

Does the impression made upon a passive subject by the
operator include more than his words convey? If so, why?

What value has character, in the relation between subject
and operator?

Is there both intentional and unintentional suggestion?
If so, why?

Is the truth of being an element that enters into healing?
If so, why?

How is it brought into the limited human consciousness?

Can this truth of being become permanently embodied
without persistent auto-suggestion to that end?

CHAPTEE LI.
The Limitations of Hypnotic Suggestion.

Students of the Science of Being who make practical ap-
plication of its principles will be sure to be asked of the dif-
ference between their " treatment " and hypnotic suggestion.

A true treatment for all disorder consists in speaking the
word of truth to the soul. One who knows the fact of response
to suggestion, without understanding why there is response,
with no knowledge of the nature of existence and destiny, can
not speak this word, for it is unknown to him. He can make
the suggestion, " You are not ill, you are not unhappy; you
are happy and well," and there will be some measure of re-
sponse to it, probably; but he can not impart by suggestion
the reason why, or teach his subject what he must know in
order to wisely use auto-suggestion for himself.

Suggestion of the opposite of an undesirable condition to
an impressible subject, can never result in more than a tem-
porary curing, because of the subject's continued auto-
suggestion according to habits of thought.

The one who knows, who has found " the Lost Word,"
needs not to use, and does not use, the force of his own will
to impress what he says. The operator with Hypnotism re-
quires, first, as complete as possible passivity on the part of his
subject, which passivity makes him truly a subject; for this
mental surrender increases natural susceptibility to impression.

The operator needs also to concentrate his own attention,
thought and will upon his subject, making himself positive

219

220 THE LIMITATIONS OF HYPNOTIC SUGGESTION.

and authoritative, while his subject becomes, through his sur-
render, less and less so. By gaining ascendancy over the sub-
ject, the subject becomes practically an automaton for the
time being, an automaton up to the point where the habitual
self-suggestion offers resistance.

Much depends, therefore, upon the habitual self-suggestion
of the subject, for if it be contrary to the suggestion of the
operator the subject will cease to be the subject beyond this
point. A crime suggested to a subject in the hypnotic state
will not be acted upon, if he, by his habit of thought, has
builded the character that offers resistance to such kind of
suggestion.

The one who gives another a treatment according to the
principles of the Science of Being, effaces rather than inten-
sifies himself. He never exerts his will to gain ascendancy
over his patient — he deals with patients, those who seek help,
not with subjects. He sees a fellow-man suffering through
lack of knowledge. He has the knowledge the sufferer lacks.
He knows what that sufferer is, what his relation to Nature
and Governing Principle, what and whence his suffering, and
he speaks what he knows, speaks the word of truth quietly,
with no employment of personal force or energy, but with
confidence, because he understands why his word is true.

Every soul is a seeker for truth, seeks it as naturally as
rivers run to the sea. This seeking is at first an involuntary im-
pulse, for it is the soul's attraction to its Origin. Even though
one has not yet made much conscious voluntary effort in this
direction, the tendency is there, and when the word of truth
is spoken to the soul by one who knows, this involuntary
tendency helps to bring response, whose measure is according
to the resistance or non-resistance offered by the habitual trend
of thought.

Moreover, the patient is never asked to make a mental sur-

THE LIMITATIONS OF HYPNOTIC SUGGESTION. 221

render. He is left in full possession of his own mental equip-
ment. The one who gives the treatment makes no war upon
anything belonging to him, fights no battle whatever. He
simply brings a light into the darkness, leaving the light to do
its own work. He is a mediator instead of an operator. He
is not using hypnotism, he is emancipating himself from its
influence, and helping his patient to do the sama

Light in the darkness is his one sole aim, without regard
to the consequences. Whether the patient recovers at once or
not is no concern of his, he has no responsibility for results.
Filling the office of mediator by speaking the word of truth,
meeting both the involuntary and voluntary demand of the
soul by explaining why it is the truth — for patients should
always be instructed audibly — he moves on when he has
spoken and leaves the work to be accomplished to the Creative
Energy that brings all to pass.

Concentration on the truth of being withdraws the atten-
tion from disease, all forms of evil, and their names. The
less the attention the less they are formed. The true healer
forms the deathless, because true, concept of being, holds it
before the soul that is dominated by the false concept by
speaking it, suggesting it to that soul. Unless the old thought
habit is so strong as to deaden all response there will be re-
sponse to this spoken word, in some measure. The true healer
deals with his patient as an individual, not as a thing, recog-
nizing his right to health and wholeness, to all spiritual pos-
sessions. He sees him as one who has missed the way and is to
be set right. The last thing he desires or attempts is to exer-
cise even a temporary dominion over him. His spoken word
declares against submission to aught but the Absolute, and
calls upon the soul to recognize its birthright as the individual.

Only the true healer knows how little he has to do with
the results gained by his patient, and yet he feels a great re-

222 THE LIMITATIONS OF HYPNOTIC SUGGESTION.

sponsibility because, for the moment, the light reaches the
darkened soul through him. He is as the glass that is trans-
parent. The patient is as the opaque wall. While the light,
always shining, can not penetrate the wall, it can pass through
the glass without hindrance. Hence, character as well as
knowledge, is essential for a true healer. The cleaner the
glass, the purer the light.

An operator with hypnotism may be what he will in char-
acter and achieve remarkable — to the uninitiated — results;
but however desirable they may appear to be, the result invol-
untary on the part of the operator, and unsought by the sub-
ject, goes with them; a result proportioned to the developed,
or undeveloped character of the subject.

Teaching and healing belong together, they walk hand in
hand along the pathway of the journeying soul, and there is
no permanent healing without the teaching that reveals the
root of disorders.

It is claimed by many of the advocates of hypnotic sug-
gestion that moral transformation can be accomplished by its
use. A man is not moral in conduct who acts under influence,
who would act otherwise if another's influence were with-
drawn. Such influence is prohibition, and prohibition checks,
but can not remove, the impulse to action. There is no truly
moral conduct till one acts morally voluntarily, all prohibition
but such as he imposes upon himself, withdrawn.

The impulse to the acts the operator seeks to prevent, is
rendered temporarily quiescent by his suggestion and influ-
ence, but it is not exterminated till the actor has cast it out of
himself. The necessities of individuality compel that he do
his own work to that end, and without instruction that reveals
to him his own powers and resources he can not do it. Without
it he will indulge in thought habits that strengthen the im-
pulse till it again breaks forth into action. His auto-suggestion

THE LIMITATIONS OF HYPNOTIC SUGGESTION. 223

will continue to form that which others seek to remove, and
whatever the sonl persistently forms the Creative Energy will
create.

The question whether it is wise to submit to hypnotic
suggestion is to be answered according to what is desired by
the questioner. As a temporal restraint, a temporary expe-
dient, it will be, often, effectual. As an exterminator of the
root cause of the undesired condition it will never be effectual.
To submit to it is to increase passivity to impression, and de-
crease self-reliance. Choice of impressions, increased suscep-
tibility to the chosen, and increased resistance to the rejected,
is the positive essential for transformation of character or
bodily conditions.

To abrogate the power of choice and become, instead, a
passive thing, for the sake of a temporary relief, is optional
with all, and each must decide for himself what it is wise to
do. Enlightened reason would seem to dictate the course
that accords with the Great Purpose.

When the truth is the thought of the healer, the word is
spoken, though, as compared with audible speech, silently.
When it is the habitual thought of the healer " virtue " goes
out from him continually and, to a limited extent, he heals
by his presence.

His habitual thought will be given direction whenever
evil and suffering present themselves, his mental word will
contradict what the sense of sight looks upon. He will not
" treat " every one indiscriminately, he will respect the rights
of others as he wishes his own respected. He will not speak in
the second person, addressing himself directly to another, un-
less that other seeks his mediatorship, but speaking for himself
of others, he will think of them, in the third person, and his
thought, his silent word, will go forth as a blessing and a bene-
diction.

224 THE LIMITATIONS OF HYPNOTIC SUGGESTION.

People will feel in him more than they see, and as he is
" lifted up " he will draw them in the same direction; in th@
direction of dominion over, rather than subjection to, all
things.

REMARKS.

You have a child, or a friend, who is very dear to you and
who is under the dominion of a bad habit, is a drunkard or a
thief. Of course you will welcome anything that will reform
him, his reformation is what you pray and work for morning,
noon and night.

What is reformation? Is it not re-formation? Hypnotism
has reformed many drunkards and made men of them; many
moral transformations have been wrought, it is said. Can
there be a truly moral transformation till the man's own re-
forming is done? If another, by hypnotic suggestion, forms
and impresses upon him an idea, which does not become by
his own enlightened co-operation his voluntary idea also, is he
really transformed or only influenced? If he does not per-
sistently impress himself in the same way, does he walk on his
own feet, or is he carried by another?

Transformation to an observer is not necessarily a moral
transformation. The man who was formerly more or less in-
toxicated every day and who now drinks no intoxicating liquor
is transformed, it is true. There is change in the man from
slavery to abstention, but this change is possible without any
moral transformation. Held by a dominating influence he
does not drink, because the impulse to drink is held in check.
He is being ruled, he does not rule himself. Not till he rules
himself is there moral transformation. His own will, uninflu-
enced by another, must act for him before the moral quality
can enter into his transformation.

If the process of Creation is the making of the individual
and the Great Purpose must win in the end, the transforma-

THE LIMITATIONS OF HYPNOTIC SUGGESTION. 223

tion lacking this great essential but delays the inevitable result,
and the longer a dominating influence over one by another is
maintained the farther off it is. A sedative is not a tonic, a
soporific does not stir to action.

It is all a matter of comparison. Immediate results to the
man and his family are mighty as compared to their former
conditions. They are comfortable and happy where before
they were in poverty and misery. Surely this is better. But
if — the importance of that if — he is a living soul that must
reach a certain altitude; if the only way to reach it is by vol-
untary use for himself of what is being used by another for
him; if he is depending upon the other to save him from his
own impulses and their consequences, he is not giving the co-
operation necessary to his moral regeneration, even though
his condition as compared with the former one is far better.
If his own will and self effort are deadened through his reli-
ance upon the one who is working for him, is he working
out his own salvation?

Better though his condition may be, there is a best which
he has not yet reached. But because of immediate results this
imperfect transformation is eagerly accepted without question
of any remote result. It is no wonder this is so. A happy
family in place of a suffering wife and hungry children is a
strong argument in favor of the means used to bring the result.
Only the clearer vision that sees the inevitable must, can refuse
to be beguiled by appearances, can point to the greater result
that includes the lesser.

The abstention resulting from prohibition is not moral
re-formation because the man does not prohibit himself, and
thereby re-form himself because he can and will. If appetite
is put to sleep it will waken from its rest with renewed vigor
when the prohibition is removed, and it is sure to be removed
unless it is self-imposed.
15

226 THE LIMITATIONS OF HYPNOTIC SUGGESTION.

If " this life " is to be alone considered, then whatever
makes it most comfortable and enjoyable is to be used to the
full. Why not ? We are born and we die, and between birth
and death we live our little lives, to fill them with that which
shall meet your desires if you are selfish, and with that which
shall meet the desires of others if you are unselfish. What
more can one do ? And if hypnotic influence can make a man
a better husband and father, son and brother, make him bet-
ter able to provide for his family and add to the happiness
of others, why not have all of it one can get % If a liar becomes
a truthful man, a thief an honest man, a drunkard a temperate
man, surely that is enough.

But if one does not so consider " this life," sees it, instead,
as but one grade of the school he attends and from which he
must graduate, all done in this grade is in view of its relation
to the others, and immediate result is considered in its relation
to remote result. To do evil that good may come is a policy
abandoned when the well-meant act, by its effect on future
results, is seen to be not as good as was first believed. Enlight-
enment and the volitional exercise of individuality, as a result
greater to be desired than relief from the unwelcome through
suspension of such exercise, will be the policy encouraged by
the one who wishes to reach the end.

If it is the soul that desires, that feels and yields to, or
conquers, impulses and appetites, then the check to these im-
pulses and appetites afforded by hypnotic suggestion must be
permanent to make permanent the honest temperate man. If
this check alone is what works the transformation it must sus-
tain the transformation. If the personal influence of the
operator is of infinite duration and extension such permanency
may be secured, not otherwise. The influence of the one
Mind is alone capable of such permanency.

What shall you do if one of your dear ones is a slave to

THE LIMITATIONS OF HYPNOTIC SUGGESTION 227

desire? Do the best you know how at the time. No one can
do more. But if you can see that the real of him is not the
objective personality but is the perfect Ideal that is to be
begotten in him as his true self, hold to that Ideal in your
own thought of him, let it radiate through you and he will
feel the warmth of its rays. As far as he will allow you and
listen, tell him audibly of this Ideal and why it is so, helping
him to make impression upon himself while you seek to make
impression upon him. Unity of effort is better than passivity
on the one hand, and push on the other.

Have perfect confidence in this Ideal and in the power
of the Creative Energy to beget it in him. ISTo matter how
many stumbles and falls are his as the work goes on, know
that the result is absolutely sure, for it is the Infinite ruling
over the finite. He will rise from grade to grade of the school
of existence, he will graduate therefrom some day, he
will eventually stand as master of the grades through which
he has passed. Have no doubt, doubt is fatal to your helpful-
ness, for doubt prompts in you an underlying suggestion that
contradicts your intentional suggestion. Your steadfastness
shall lead him to the way of eternal life.

QUESTIONS.

In what does a " treatment " consist?

What is necessary to enable one to be a healer?

What is the " Lost Word "?

What is the difference in the requirements of a hypnotic
operator and a true healer?

In healing, what part is played by the personal will?

What determines receptivity to suggestion?

Is a hypnotic subject likely to commit a crime he would
not commit in his normal state? If not, why not?

228 THE LIMITATIONS OF HYPNOTIC SUGGESTION.

Does a true healer dominate his patient, or does he help
the patient to dominate his lesser self?

Is there an instinctive seeking for truth? If so, why?

On what does the measure of response to the spoken word
depend?

What is the difference between a hypnotic operator and a
true healer?

Why must a true healer be a teacher?

Why is teaching necessary for the soul?

Are the rights of individuality to be respected? If so,
why?

What part does character play in the work of healing?

How much is accomplished for one by another's prohib-
itive influence?

Do you think it wise to renounce your power of choice?

Can you fulfil your destiny except by the exercise of that
power?

Is it necessary to use audible speech in speaking the word?

When is treatment of others by direct address, lawful, and
when unlawful?

Is it not always lawful to do good?

Is it not also necessary to choose wisely the way of do-
ing it?

Does a good motive always prevent an unwise effort?

Will not effort from the basis of understanding accomplish
more in the end than an effort made without it?

Which is wisest? To show the way and walk in it your-
self, leaving others to follow or not as they choose, or fasten
them to yourself and strive to drag them along?

What do you understand by the force of example?

CHAPTER LIL
Experience.

Clearly there can be no experience till there is one capable
of experiencing. Experience therefore can not belong to the
Impersonal Order, it must belong to the Personal Order. Ex-
perience does not pertain to the science of numbers, it pertains
to the student of the science.

Experience is the portion of the existent soul as it follows
the Impersonal Order in its ascent to Beginning, and may be
considered under the head of genus and species. Experience
unqualified is inseparable from the Personal Order, kinds or
qualifications belong at different stages of this Order.

The soul existent, environed, embodied, meets little by
little all the Impersonal Order makes possible, discovers, feels,
judges, and either retains or eliminates what it experiences.
Stored up in or rejected from the self-consciousness is all the
knowledge gained in the ascent of the Impersonal Order.

To exist and to experience are synonymous. But a kind
of experience, a species, need not continue all through the
ascent. All kinds are possible to the existent soul, all kinds
need not remain with and accompany the soul till it has
reached the Beginning. The power of choice used by the soul
is effective to this end. As manifestation of the self -idea is in
accord with the nature of Creation, when the consequences of
the mistaken self -idea have been thus experienced and the soul
has learned what not to do, by choosing to do, and by doing

229

230 EXPERIENCE.

that which is possible instead of that which is merely natural,
the old kind of experience is finally eliminated.

All forms of dis-ease, all sorrow and pain, all moral ob-
liquity and spiritual darkness are driven out of the human
consciousness to be known no more because overcome. Exter-
mination of the root producing them must result in their de-
struction. "No one and no thing, human or divine, can lift
experience from the individual or the race. The beginner in
the science of numbers can become the expert mathematician
only by his experience which calls out his powers and capa-
bilities, setting them to work upon that which confronts him.

But as the painful toil and struggle consequent upon nat-
ural blindness and mistakes can be eliminated from his expe-
rience, and in proportion to his discovery and use of the prin-
ciples winch at first he did not see, so in the soul-experience
there is the change from ignorance to wisdom which conquers,
when the wisdom is put to use, the old kind of experience.
All the enemies of the soul — the possible consequences of its
own possible mistaking — are to be put to death as the expe-
rience that proves to the soul its dominion in its own domain.

Because Primal Energy is Creative Power, because it
creates for the soul whatever it forms for itself, the process
by which this is accomplished is the inevitable experience of
the soul. From knowing the natural and all the natural com-
pels, it will come to know the spiritual and the divine with
all they compel; a knowing that begins at Environment and
ends at the Absolute. In the passage from one to the other,
sin, sickness and death are encountered and left behind. All
evil is passed over and left for ever by the soul as it ascends
to Origin.

EXPERIENCE. 231

QUESTIONS.

What is the difference, if any, between Existence and Ex-
perience ?

Does a kind of experience constitute the whole that is Ex-
perience?

If the power of choice is used by the soul must there not
be room for its exercise?

Must there not be room for its experience?

Without contrast is there room for choice?

Need a kind of experience be continued if it is not desired ?

What power can be used by the soul to change the kind
of experience?

When will the soul attempt to alter its experiences?

Can you reckon with certainty on the disappearance of evil
and the appearance of good?

CHAPTEE LIIL
The Common Mental Atmosphere.

Illustration :

The physical atmosphere that all inhale and exhale is
common to this planet, consequently it is common to all men.
All who breathe draw it into themselves and expel it from
themselves. Through the action of the breather it circulates
in the physical organism, with the result that personal emana-
tions are added to the common atmosphere. Through the
multiplicity of breathers the common atmosphere is laden with
what is no part of it fundamentally, and yet these emana-
tions, because they are additions to the common whole, enter
into other individual organisms through individual inhalation.

Each breather, therefore, is brought in contact, direct or
remote, with all the personal emanations that have been added
to the common whole. They enter into him through his own
natural act of breathing. The process is one of law and order,
but the. result to him depends upon his susceptibility or re-
sistance to what he inhales with the atmosphere.

Inhaling the atmosphere is a condition of existence. In-
haling what goes with the atmosphere makes a condition in
existence proportioned to susceptibility or resistance. Calling
these emanations germs, it follows that they are rendered in-
nocuous when the system can resist them, are dangerous only
when this resistance is absent. The natural act of breathing
serves as a means of inoculation, a natural act with a natural

result.

233

THE COMMON MENTAL ATMOSPHERE. 233

The consequence to the individual, however, depends upon
himself, is of two kinds, desirable and undesirable. Which-
ever follows the act of breathing nature is not violated, but
in the one case power over a result possible from a natural
process is manifested.

Through the natural act of breathing contact with emana-
tions from the remotest bounds of the world is theoretically
possible, and each member of the human family is heir to all
the universal atmosphere contains. Nothing can alter this
natural fact, nature is no respecter of persons, but admitting
the possibility of cultivation of resistance to what it contains,
the individual can determine the consequences to himself.

Transfer this illustration to the metaphysical plane where
is a common mental atmosphere inhaled and exhaled by all
living souls, and filled with their thought-emanations, and
what does analogy reveal?

The thinking power is common to all men, all living souls
are thinkers because the existent soul is user of the powers of
being. Generations of thinkers, ages of thinking, have im-
pregnated the soul-atmosphere with personal emanations.

If souls are individual, each having its own identity, the
distinction between them compels an invisible atmosphere in
which they belong, even as physical bodies are immersed in a
common ocean of air.

If the term " atmosphere " is objectionable, call it " be-
tweenness."

The fact that two visible personages are not identical, com-
pels a between — something between them. "We say " some-
thing " when referring to the between, and we call it " space."
There is space between two personages because the two are
not the same, and this space is filled with atmosphere. No
two souls are the same. Each has its own identity, there is a

234 THE COMMON MENTAL ATMOSPHERE.

between, this between is the mental space — we will say — filled
with mental atmosphere.

Carrying the analogy further, the act of thinking is the
breathing of the soul whereby it inhales and exhales this at-
mosphere. It follows that the atmosphere must be laden with
soul-emanations, filled with the thoughts of all breathers
which they have added to the common whole. What each
soul forms for itself has place in this space that is without
length, breadth and thickness, and all these living souls,
through the individual act of inhalation, are brought in con-
tact, direct and remote, with the thought-emanations of others.
What is formed is afterward created by the Creative En-
ergy. Each thought of the existent soul is the forerunner of
a created result, a result not only to the thinker of the thought
as that which is created for him, but to others as what is cre-
ated for them if it enters into them and dwells there. Because
each human thought goes beyond the individual thinker of it
into the common mental atmosphere, because other souls in-
hale it through their relation to the whole, results are more
than the individual result to the one who first formed it. Re-
sults to all who inhale it must be according to the degree of
susceptibility to the kind, or according to the power of resist-
ance to the kind.

THOUGHTS AUE THINGS.

A thought sent out into the common mental atmosphere
will find lodgement in other souls, will be held or cast out
according to the dominant idea of the soul it enters. If the
habitual trend of thought is according to the kind, the thought
first formed and sent out into the mental atmosphere by some
one else will be held within the soul in which it has found
lodgement, will germinate there and bring forth its fruit.

THE COMMON MENTAL ATMOSPHERE. 235

So " the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children."
" Like attracts like."

According to the dominant mental trend every soul at-
tracts from the common mental atmosphere the " germs " that
are like to that trend in kind or quality. It is thereby strength-
ened and possible results to the soul are increased beyond what
belong to its own immediate thinking. A soul is partaker of
the woes of humanity while it experiences its own individual
woes. Likewise is it the sharer of the joys of the world if it
have joy of its own.

" j^o man liveth to himself alone."

"While each soul must reap after its owm sowing it also
reaps after the sowing of others, reaps good or ill according to
what it inhales from the mental atmosphere and holds, instead
of expels. Every thought is a seed, each seed produces after
its own, not a foreign, kind. Each seed is sure to produce if
conditions for germination are afforded. Floating in the
mental atmosphere they do not bring forth; entering into a
soul, and remaining there through attraction of the kind, they
have the condition for germination. Good or evil must be the
result to the soul according to the kind of seed.

Is each soul, then, at the mercy of mental germs? As all
names of diseases, physical and moral, have a mental origin,
all these conditions, in germ, are afloat in the mental atmos-
phere. Liability to disease and suffering must be increased
by a dominant mental trend in kind, or lessened by an op-
posite trend; liability to evil-doing must be increased or les-
sened in the same way.

As on the physical plane resistance to the action of
germs — it is said — prevents them from breeding their conse-
quence in the system, so on the mental plane resistance to
mental germs will bring like result.

If it is possible for the soul to resist such action, if the

236 THE COMMON MENTAL ATMOSPHERE.

soul-organism can offer sufficient resistance, all undesired
mental germs can be rendered innocuous; but without resist-
ance natural susceptibility must offer a fertile field for inocu-
lation.

What, then, saves one from suffering not only the conse-
quences of his own mis-taking but the consequences of the
" sins of the fathers," as well? Through one's natural igno-
rance and misconception of being the door is open for the
entrance of all the same kind in the mental atmosphere; all
the beliefs of past generations, all forms of suffering. Sus-
ceptibility to these germs is natural, resistance to them is pos-
sible through correction of the self-idea and dominant trend
of thought that acts as the attraction. Through such cor-
rection and cultivation of a spiritual conception of being and
trend of thought, not only is resistance offered to the unde-
sirable, but the door is open through which may come all that
uplifts and encourages the soul, instead of that which con-
firms its ignorance and helplessness.

The existent soul is heir not only to all the resources of
being, to all that is God-derived, but also to all that is man-
derived; to all that has been formed in thought by the whole
human race. There is much for it to be saved from, much for
it to be saved unto. Natural susceptibility to impression from
environment, physical and mental, ensnares it, cultivated re-
sistance to such susceptibility redeems it from bondage, and
law and order obtain all the while.

Because the Creative Energy brings to manifestation what
the existent soul forms, to form the idea of resistance to the
action of mental germs, to hold it persistently as the present
possibility, never to let it go, is to have successful resistance
brought to pass at last. Clearly, then, redemption for the soul
from suffering is in its own hands, for the power to choose
what it will think and thus form, belongs to it. Until expe-

THE COMMON MENTAL ATMOSPHERE. 237

rience has brought more knowledge and awakened the soul to
this necessity it is sure to suffer in proportion to the suscep-
tibility that is not opposed by resistance. Both the natural
result and the spiritual result are for the soul, the road from
the natural that is first to the spiritual that is last stretches
before it, for it is the road that is continuity of existence.

As the physical atmosphere is set in motion by the exhala-
tion of a breather, so is the mental atmosphere set in motion
by the exhalation of a thinker. A wave is formed that moves
onward, touching and carrying along whatever lies in its path.
If this wave is given conscious direction what it carries along
will be directed to a recipient. The result to the recipient will
depend upon whether he attracts or repels what it contains.

The consequences of original sin, all manner of dis-ease
will visit him if he attracts them through his fixed belief in
them as unavoidable necessity. If he believes this error to be
truth he will offer a centre of attraction for its results, a centre
in the common mental atmosphere toward which will surge
currents filled with disease-laden germs.

If through enlightenment, and individual action of his
own according to it, he has set up another and higher attrac-
tion, one that draws to himself as a focus the truth that per-
sistently seeks manifestation, he becomes a centre of the truth
of being that repels the lower currents, while it grows steadily
stronger in attraction of all that pertains to Divinity and its
mastery of Humanity.

All that is, has been and will be. The common mental
atmosphere is the great storehouse where are preserved all
human woe and misery. Each living soul adds its quota to
the whole and experiences what he attracts from it. Passing
through him by means of his mental inhalations and exhala-
tions the deposits, what remains with him, become his experi-
ences, his inheritance as the son of man. His own effort for

238 THE COMMON MENTAL ATMOSPHERE.

redemption from this inheritance, through perception of his
divine birthright and what it ensures him, must put him in
possession of the inheritance that is his as Son of God.

One must individualize his own soul, prevent it from being
swayed or tossed about by the currents of the mental atmos-
phere, from being impregnated by diseased mental germs;
must do the work that accords with the Great Purpose — the
making of the Individual that is the Personal God.

CHAPTEE LIV.
Heredity.

Though the existent soul has the whole Impersonal Order
as its inheritance, a soul, at birth, inherits also all that has
been experienced by all souls preceding it in time. All the
human race has thought and felt is added to the inheritance of
an existent soul. It is the plus of human existence and expe-
rience added to the plus that brings Existence, Environment
and Embodiment. " The sins of the fathers are visited upon
the children," and this persistence of tendencies set up in Ex-
istence is heredity from progenitors.

But the possibilities of the Impersonal Order constitute
heredity from the Absolute, the higher heredity. Both are
consequent upon the law of cause and effect. With the in-
dividual rests the power to check and finally overcome for him-
self the lesser heredity, a work to be done by cultivation of
the higher heredity; by taking possession of all that is for the
soul according to the Impersonal Order.

The " sins of the world," the errors and pains of human-
ity confront the existent soul and, in some form, have place
in its experience. Its own sin and consequences are added to
and strengthened by this heredity, but, equally, its effort at
mastery is added to and strengthened by every such effort that
has ever been made. Though by its own natural mistaking it
carries along the " sins of the world " in its own person, as the
individual it can eventually triumph over them through the
Power of the Whole.

239

240 HEREDITY.

When the ability to conceive the true self -idea is developed,
and choice is made as to which shall be cultivated and strength-
ened and which abandoned, the generation of the higher self-
consciousness is the possibility brought finally to actuality.

The relation of an individual to the family entails for him
results that are also common to the family and to the race;
the relation of the individual to the Absolute entails results
that are, first, for the individual. Subjection to the fleshly
heredity is natural, belongs to the ignorance of Nature and
destiny that is the infancy of the existent soul. Mastery of it,
through generated consciousness of the individual relation to
the Absolute, is the as natural accompaniment of the maturity
of the soul.

Between the subjection and the mastery, the infancy and
the maturity, belongs the work performed in the intervening
states, the overcoming of the natural self-idea and its conse-
quences with the spiritual self -idea and its consequences.

The heredity due to membership in the human race is the
temporal, the heredity due to individual relation to the Abso-
lute is the eternal. When the soul's purpose conforms to the
Great Purpose, Existence includes the triumph of the eternal
over the temporal.

QUESTIONS.

What is the plus that is added to Existence by the human
race?

What does the existent soul inherit from its relation to the
race?

Can the soul be permanently afflicted by this heredity?

To what is the soul heir by its relation to the Absolute ?

Which heredity is the stronger and more permanent?

What law determines either heredity?

HEREDITY. 241

Are we to blame if we inherit " the sins of the fathers " ?

Are we to blame if we carry them indefinitely?

Are we entitled to any credit for our higher heredity?

Is our use of the higher against the lower optional? If oo,
why?

Which does the soul experience first? The results of the
lower or of the higher heredity?

Which results are to be permanent for the soul ?
Are you obliged to yield to sense conditions and say, " I can
not help it, I was born so " ?

Have you power to change your natural self?

Is heredity after the flesh any excuse for not trying to
overcome?

Are you excusing yourself, on the ground of heredity, for
not trying, or are you striving for mastery?

Which of your two relations is eternal? The one to the
race, or the one to the Absolute?

Will not your eternal relation compel more from you than
the other can compel?

Which heredity are you aiding by co-operation?

Because gout is hereditary in your family must you always
have gout?

16

CHAPTEK LV.
Locality.

" Here " and " there " are relative terms, the one indicat-
ing the other, belonging to the Personal Order.

Speaking according to its dominant sense, the existent soul
is " here." Speaking according to a discerned possibility it
is " there." The fact is " here," the contingent is " there."
When the contingent possibility has become the palpable fact,
" there " has become " here." This is change within, rather
than without, and shows locality to be but condition; condition
either attained or prospective.

" Life in this world " is a condition present as the expe-
rienced. " Life in the next world " is a condition not yet, but
to be, experienced. As relative to each other " here " and
" there " must accompany the soul all the way in its expe-
rience of the Personal Order; and yet it is possible for the soul
to resolve both " here " and " there " into the everlasting Now
by discerning and understanding the Impersonal Order.

Infancy is " here," childhood is " there." Childhood be-
comes " here " and boyhood is " there," and this displacement
of " here " by " there " goes on till the far-off maturity, or
manhood, of the existent soul has become " here " ; till the
Great Purpose and the like human purpose are accomplished.

" Now " displaces " here " and " there " when the sense
of materiality is displaced by the sense of eternal and change-
less order and harmony. It is all " Now," for existence is con-

242

LOCALITY. 243

tinuous and it is its states that furnish a basis for the relative
" here " and " there."

This state of consciousness, whether environment is named
America or Africa, is " here." To die and go from " here "
to " there " is not possible, if by dying is meant, leaving the
physical body; for " here " as a natural state of consciousness
has both its objective and subjective aspects, and this kind of
dying is but turning from the objective to the subjective. It
is not a going to another locality, except as a sense of the soul
constitutes locality.

QUESTIONS.

Is locality a place with geographical boundaries, inde-
pendent of your consciousness?

When you say " here " or " there " what are you ex-
pressing?

Are you independent of, and separate from, your environ-
ment?

What do you understand by the " next world " ?

What is the difference between " present " and " future "?

What may they be to you?

Do you believe that when you die you go away from the
world to another locality?

What evidence that there is another world can you find?

If locality is condition, can dropping a fleshly garment
change your condition, or put you in a different locality?

CHAPTEE LVL
The Lost Word.

" Speak the word only and I shall be healed."

If successful treatment of any disease must be by employ-
ment of a remedy that reaches to the root cause of disease
itself, this is a remedy that has been lost and must be found
to be used.

If a misconception of being is natural to the existent soul,
and it lives and experiences according to the misconception,
the truth of being is lost to it. As a wanderer the soul must
deal with what confronts and surrounds it — till the faculties
of being, quickened to action by suffering, begin to lead it in
the direction of the lost truth.

Nothing in the Impersonal Order can cease to be, nothing
in it can be fact for the existent soul till the soul discovers.
Till then each and all factors but one are lost. This one, the
phenomenal World, is visible; all others are to be found.

Conception according to mortal sense is a word spoken by
the soul continually, for it is the mental speech of the soul.
Not till perception contradicts mortal sense, and understand-
ing sustains the contradiction, can the lost truth of being be
conceived, spoken as the mental speech of the soul. This
abstract truth, discovered, becomes the spoken word that can
heal the soul of all its disorders. It follows that any perceiv-
ing and understanding soul can speak, for itself or another,
the previously lost word.

Speaking the lost word is a necessity, believing it is not

244

THE LOST WORD. 245

enough. Belief is passive, action is necessary to result. To
tell one's self or another the truth is to speak the lost word,
speak the truth; it is the action necessary for result, and the
result is a healing of the soul that finds its way to manifesta-
tion as a healing of the body. Soul first, body afterward, is
the order that is the reversal of the old order — body first and
soul afterward.

All accomplishment, all high attainment, in whatever
department, depends upon discovery of, and use of, the lost
word. Truth is abstract, it can become concrete only by
expression, for expression action is a necessity. Ideals are
abstract, they become concrete by expression, they are ex-
pressed when they are carried out in action.

The Divine Ideal, to appear, must be carried out in action.
To appear in the individual life, each soul must carry it out
in its own action. To speak the lost word is to carry on the
action that brings forth the Divine Ideal as the Actual Man;
an action that disposes of the first natural man by displace-
ment, finishing Creation.

"Wilt thou be made whole?" Willingness to be made
whole, to be healed, is essential for effectual work.

The practical application of the principles set forth can
be summed up as " Speak the lost word! " to yourself, to any
who desire such help; the simplest thing possible, yet with
mighty results. To speak the lost word is to bring the truth
of being into the self-consciousness and displace what for-
merly had possession. The seed will bring forth after its
kind, a kind that will destroy the fruits of the old seed.

CHAPTER LYII.
The Responsibility of a Healer.

You wish to do good in the world? to follow the example
of early apostolic times, and help to heal those who suffer,
who are in " the valley of the shadow of death " ?

The " signs following " were once a proof of apostleship,
of a converted one, a Christian. If they were the legitimate
result of principles understood and applied, of fixed laws that
make no exceptions with persons, they must be as possible
now as ever, when the conditions are afforded under which
they appear.

You recognize this and you want to be a healer, a fol-
lower of the Great Healer who always worked for the soul
as the way to betterment of bodily conditions.

What then are the essentials? Meekness is one of them,
the true meekness that comes from possession of wisdom, not
the assumed humility that comes from lack of it. Having
the wisdom you know that you can not heal anyone, that the
truth itself, heals, and you are but the speaker of the truth,
the necessary mediator between it and the soul that has it
not. You know what the one who needs your help does not
know. You know the lost word, he does not. You can speak
what he can not yet speak because he does not know it.

As speaker of the truth you meet a condition by which
the truth can work in him if he will receive it. Good de-
stroys evil, truth destroys error, but the good must be brought

246

THE RESPONSIBILITY OF A HEALER. 247

to bear upon the evil. Doing what he does not know how
to do for himself, or what a severe sense of suffering prevents
him from doing thoroughly and persistently, you are filling
the office of mediator; you are not healing, and you can not
heal, him.

Because this is your only office, and the truth itself, not
you, does the work, you have no responsibility for the results
whatever they may be. If requested to bring a light into
a dark room you are not responsible for what the light re-
veals. If the patient recovers, you are not entitled to credit;
if he dies, you are not to blame.

If you would be a true healer you will not work for the
sake of the results, but for the work's sake.

Poise is another essential. Without self-poise you will
be alternately exalted, and beaten down and discouraged.
You must find the still place where the voice of your own
human vanity, apprehension, conceit, is not heard. To speak
the word is your only work, all you are capable of doing in
the case, the results do not depend upon you. Let a great
silence surround you, " be still and know " ; the Creative
Energy will do its work through you; when, in how long a
time, is no concern of yours.

If you never overstep the boundaries of your own prov-
ince, never allow desire for appreciation, love of applause,
eagerness for results, to draw you over them, you will have
the essential poise that helps you to feel that the Force of
forces is working with you to the best result, whatever that
may be. To stipulate the kind of results, to question
when they appear is not for you, for you wish to be a healer,
not a hypnotizer. To be a healer is to speak the truth to the
soul. Your work begins and ends there. To carry it into
a domain where it does not belong is to interfere with the
Great Purpose instead of co-operate with it. Get a large idea

248 THE RESPONSIBILITY OF A HEALER.

of your own importance, pride yourself on your reputation
as a healer, roll approbation and applause as a sweet morsel
under your tongue, and as sure as two and two are four you
will descend to the plane of personal influence in your work
and cease to be a true spiritual healer.

Another essential — eliminate for yourself the old thought
and feeling that what you see with your natural sight is what
you must work to save. The natural objective side of per-
sonality is temporal. You have no concern with it. It is
the hidden soul that needs the help. The phenomenon is
transient, but there is no death. The soul is to come out of
the shadow of death into the light of eternal day. For you,
death must be the unreality and continued existence beyond
the plane of phenomena, the reality; otherwise you will be
possessed by fear, and the true healer must be free from
fear. But this freedom does not mean recklessness or usur-
pation of authority.

- Another essential is recognition of the rights of the in-
dividual. Every one has his individual right to choose what
he will or will not do, will or will not receive, will or will
not think. As you have become able to act as a mediator
through your choice, your rejection of the common mistake
and alliance with the discovered truth, so is his the same
privilege. As your own experiences brought you to this po-
sition, as you would have resisted any attempt to force your
action had you known of such attempt, grant to another what
you feel to be your own right and do not, under the pleia
" If he understood he would be willing," usurp his preroga-
tive and do his thinking for him when he is ignorant of your
doing and therefore has not opportunity to assent to, or
reject it.

For this is what you are doing for the time being, when
you speak the word to him; you are speaking it for him,

THE RESPONSIBILITY OF A HEALER. 249

speaking in his place; therefore you should have his consent
for what you do. Without his consent you " do evil that
good may come," for whatever militates against the free ex-
ercise of the power of choice in individual matters militates
against the making of the Individual, the fulfillment of the
Great Purpose.

When he consents that you shall speak the word for him,
he consents that for the moment you shall, practically, do
his thinking for him, and he is able to withhold his consent
if he chooses. If he refuses to allow you to " treat " him,
to speak the word for him — for this is what a " treatment "
is — does it follow that you can do nothing for him? If every
thought you think goes out into the common mental atmos-
phere which all souls inhale, watchfulness of how you think,
the habitual thinking of truth, will add to the common whole
a healing element. If from you comes no erroneous thought
you have lessened the disease germs and increased the health
germs that other souls will inhale, and if you never work for
others in any other way you are still a benefactor, a redeemer.

But you think of a certain one and you set up a wave in
tne common atmosphere that has direction. It will bear to
him what you think of him, the same word of truth you
would speak to him were you doing his thinking for him
instead of your own thinking about him. You are doing
what you have every right to do, you are interfering with
no right of his, your spoken word will reach and help him
in proportion to his susceptibility to it. You have exercised
your own right, you have not infringed upon his right, you
have done well, he will receive good.

Do not make the mistake of believing that no good re-
sults can come to him unless you speak directly to him, call-
ing him by name. God and Nature have provided the means
by which every word of yours is preserved. Your every

250 THE RESPONSIBILITY OF A HEALER.

thought, your every mental word, lives in the common mental
atmosphere; and your every mental word of truth, given
direction by your thought of some particular one, will gravi-
tate toward that one.

People are helpers or hinderers by the same law. Desire
to be a helper, enforced by knowledge of how to help and
wisdom in the choice of the way, will make you a healer pro-
vided you do your best to live the life that makes God mani-
fest in you. One may be a hypnotizer, and by his mental
suggestion induce marvelous results with his patient, without
spiritual perception, conception, or aspiration; without effort
to attain to God-Likeness; but not so the healer. Without
such perception, conception and aspiration that looses the
hold of mortal sense and mistaken self-interest, one will surely
use mental force in the direction of self-interest; a work often
disguised by the name of " for their good."

The hypnotizer assumes and maintains authority over his
subject, a healer has no subjects, seeks and uses no personal
authority, aims to set his patient free from all human author-
ity, even such as might be yielded as his own. The healer
places his patient in the open plain of individual freedom
and responsibility, places him upon his feet, shows him that
he has feet and how to use them. He does not make the man
" impotent in his feet " still more impotent by transference
of his dependence from the physical to the psychical. He
points and leads him to the spiritual as the only sure de-
pendence, the only force sufficient to produce the regenerated
self-consciousness that gives a regenerated life.

To be a true healer you must set the patient's lasting good
before an immediate gratification, if it comes to a choice be-
tween the two; and you must be strong enough to refuse
what he asks, and even what others ask for him, at the cost
of misjudgment and denunciation of yourself, when his best

THE RESPONSIBILITY OF A HEALER. 351

good demands this of you. You must minister to the sick
soul as the way to minister most effectually to the sick body.

This requires a clear eye and firm hand, a heart so filled
with love to God and love to man as to accept, without a
murmur, crucifixion at their hands in return for your work
for them; the reward always offered by the ignorant to the
one who proffers wisdom. You must be strong enough to
refuse to place in new bonds those who are seeking escape
from their old ones, to abstain from taking advantage of their
weakness to build a kingdom for yourself in which you shall
be the ruler and they your willing subjects.

When Jesus saw that the people would take him by force
to make him a king, he withdrew from them ; a good example
for you to follow, a necessary example if you shall teach
" Call no man your Master."

To you, all bodily conditions are related to antecedent
mental conditions, therefore there is one root-cause for all,
whether the patient be child or man. Your work lies with
this cause, you bear witness unto the truth, regardless of what
your testimony brings to yourself. Then your word will be
with power because you seek not your own glory. It will
go whereunto it is sent, space will be no impediment, it shall
come to pass.

CHAPTER LVIIL

The Use of Material Remedies.

One of the perplexing questions assailing those who aim
to live according to the truth of being instead of according
to the natural self-idea, is, " Is it right for me to use any
material means whatever, when I am ill? Do I do wrong
if I make use of other than mental remedies ?" Here is
where many stumble and fall, some on one side of the divid-
ing line between the spiritual and the material and some on
the other.

What constitutes right and wrong? What is right to
one is wrong to another because standards vary, because the
nature and destiny of the human soul are such that standards
of thought and action must always be adjustable. Right and
wrong pertain to the progress of the soul, only. Every thing
that is natural is right as pertaining to the sequence of cause
and effect. Here there can be no wrong.

But for the Onlooker there must some time be selection.
He is to choose what he will take, what he will leave of that
which is all natural. For him there is progress; for the
fundamental factors in Creation there is none, they are fixed
and changeless. He is to deal with the problems of existence,
the right answers are the correct answers. He is to give the
correct answers, he may have given, first, incorrect answers.
In this sense he is to do right where before he did wrong,
but this is not an ethical right and wrong. He is to work
according to fixed principle, not contrary to it.

252

THE USE OF MATERIAL REMEDIES. 253

If there is more than one means for use in his work, he
has the power and the right to choose which he will at a given
time employ, and all means are naturally right means, though
some may be better than others at a given period of the work.

When a beginner in Mathematics uses a slate and pencil
he is using a right means. When he turns to a lead-pencil
and paper, or blackboard and chalk, these are equally right
means. When by his progress any one of them has become
unnecessary to him he no longer selects it from the rest. Did
he believe that the power to give him the answer to the prob-
lem he is attempting belonged to any one of these means he
would be using wrong means when he employed it, for this
belief would prevent the understanding that could prove the
truth or untruth of the answer reached.

The means employed, while all good in themselves, would
become right or wrong for him according to his ignorance
or understanding of their nature. They would be right or
wrong to him according to his sense of moral responsibility.
Did he think, " Now I see that the slate and pencil have not
the power I thought they had. They have not the least power
to produce any result for me. Matter has no power, all is
Mind. I see, now, that without mental action I can never
get the answer to the problem, therefore I will no more em-
ploy the material means, it would not be right," then to use
the slate and pencil would be, for him, ethically wrong.

Right doing and wrong doing in the ethical sense are a
doing according to, or contrary to, a conviction of what is
right and what is wrong. In the non-ethical sense they are
a doing according to, or contrary to, the Great Purpose.

Dependence upon material things as health bringers, as
restorers of the original birthright, is a misplaced dependence
due to ignorance. Their use as such means to such end is a
doing that is contrary to the Purpose to be carried out, and

254 THE USE OF MATERIAL REMEDIES,

that puts obstacles in the way. The power that heals is not
in them, no more than is the power to give a correct answer
to a mathematical problem resident in the slate and pencil
employed.

The all-important question to be put to one's self is
"Where do I place my dependence?" The answer will be
according to enlightenment and understanding. Believing
that the power to give the answer belongs to the slate and
pencil, the worker of the problem will concentrate his atten-
tion unwisely, increase his misdirected effort after each failure,
be held in bondage to his own belief, try, in consequence, to
get the best slate and pencil obtainable. He will be used
by them to manifest his own ignorance and its consequences,
he will bow down to them and serve them so long as they
thus use him. Not till he uses them instead, does he take
his place of right relation to them.

The existent soul has to learn right relation to environ-
ment and all things material, to the real being and all things
spiritual, making in itself reconciliation between the above
and the below. To ignore either is unwise, to place depend-
ence upon that which will prove insufficient is equally so.
Only he who understands can reconcile, those who do not
understand will be extremists in one or the other direction.
Neither extreme position is the sound or safe position.

Those who are troubled over what is right and what is
wrong to do, have no compunctions of conscience when eat-
ing breakfast or dinner, and yet they are employing material
means to allay hunger, to warm their houses, to clothe their
bodies, to go from one side of the city to another. They who
believe it wrong — and, so believing, it is wrong — for them
not to drop all material means and depend entirely upon
mental means or " upon Truth," to be consistent should never
do any of these things, should never throw their arms around

THE USE OF MATERIAL REMEDIES. 255

their dear ones and say " I love you," for the arms and vocal
organs are material. They should rely on mental action alone.
The difference between the Spiritual and the Material is
fixed by God and Nature, and it is eternal. Of themselves
the two will never meet and mingle. Right adjustment of
the one to the other is the great necessity^ a necessity that
compels eventually the right adjustment of Science and Re-
ligion, the divinely wedded pair that have been humanly
divorced. This adjustment takes place in the human soul,
in our consciousness, not outside of it. We are to make it,
it will never make itself; we are to bring both kingdoms
into one as our own kingdom where we rule by divine right.
We are to bring the above to the below, we are to lift the
below to the above.

The Spiritual

The Material

The living soul

As parallel lines do not meet of themselves, they can not
reconcile themselves one with the other if they are opposites.
But if both meet in a third, within this third a reconciliation
between them to the soul that is the third, is possible. It
is the adapter of one to the other, a work done in itself for
itself; an individual work necessarily. Connected with both,
one must see both and decide for himself on which he will
place his dependence.

Understanding that the Spiritual possesses all potencies,
and the Material does not, the choice is quickly made. But
the soul sees the Material first and finds the Spiritual after-
ward. " First the natural, afterward the spiritual " is the
order, but " first the Spiritual, afterward the Natural " be-
comes the order for him who sees and understands; and he

256 THE USE OF MATERIAL REMEDIES.

will not misplace his dependence, even though, because still
connected with the Material by the physical body, he eats,
drinks and uses material things at his discretion. When this
stage is reached he can use without being used and as he
chooses. He is the judge whose ruling determines the verdict.
Without being for one moment deceived by appearance, he
can " suffer it to be so now " as he uses what he chooses,
understanding " for thus it becometh us to fulfill all right-
eousness."

We must be righteous to the Material as well as to the
Spiritual, otherwise we can make in ourselves no reconcilia-
tion between them. Now this does not mean that we are
to fill ourselves with the contents of the drug shop on the
plea that we may do this with impunity " for all things are
ours," when the real reason is that we are afraid we can not
get help if we do not. That is self-deception still. Percep-
tion that both the Spiritual and Material have place in
Creation, that we are related to one -as well as to the other,
is not to be used as an excuse for not trying to do what We
ought to do, what eventually we must do — depend on Mind
alone.

We must never lose sight of this necessity, this mighty
truth, or relax our efforts to live to the eternal instead of to
the temporal; but we need not scourge or despise ourselves
if, after having made faithful effort to do the best we can
day by day, we still use to some extent material things. Not
to be deceived by them is the main thing; not to grant to
them what does not belong to them, is to keep out of bondage
to them.

The wise man is never a fanatic, never an extremist. The
truly strong man is he who is so poised, has such fine ground
under his feet, that he can reach above and below and bring
all unto himself. He will be neither a visionary ecstatic,

THE USE OF MATERIAL REMEDIES. 257

nor a materialistic dogmatist. Lack of adaptation to environ-
ment makes the ecstatic, lack of spiritual illumination, the
dogmatist. Both are weak, not strong; blended together
they might make a man.

Before the understanding that reveals the Spiritual is
gained, the soul does not choose between the Spiritual and
the Material. The Material is all there is, and choice is lim-
ited to the best of it. But afterward one chooses for himself
according to his conviction of right and wrong. This is our
prerogative, freedom of choice, it makes the individual.
Therefore if another chooses differently from ourselves let
us not condemn him, he is exercising his prerogative as he
has a right to do. If we see that he is deceiving himself,
that it is with him " First the natural, and afterward the
spiritual " let us warn him and enlighten him if he will be
enlightened, remembering that the final decision rests with
himself.

Let us refrain from exercising authority over others by
trying to compel them to follow our conviction of right in-
stead of their own. ISTo one can adjust the Spiritual and
Material to each other for any one but himself, for it is the
life we live that makes this adjustment. We can help others
to find and see what they have not before found and seen,
stimulate them to effort, warn them of new possible mistakes,
life up before them the eternal standard, Truth; but we are
not to compel them to accept in this matter our right and
wrong as their right and wrong. Use, not abuse, enlightened
mastery, not ignorant servitude, is the crying need, and as
every one has capacity for reaching this result he must be
left free to develop it in himself according to his own con-
viction of what he may or may not do.

To make use of material means in case of illness a test
of sincerity while permitting such use in normal every-day
17

258 THE USE OF MATERIAL REMEDIES.

life as quite proper, while the amount of material possessions
one can meanwhile accumulate is regarded as "demonstra-
tion of truth," seems absurd to the clear thinker who can
trace the relation between the Spiritual and the Natural, and
unnecessary to the earnest soul that seeks first the " kingdom
of God and his righteousness."

Stand by essentials unswervingly, but see to it first that
an unclouded vision reveals what are the essentials. Do not
be influenced by party-spirit, sectarian clamor, but follow in
purity of thought and all sincerity of purpose the right as
you see it. Then let the judgment of others be what it may
you have done right. But see well to it that you do not fail
of constant mental watchfulness and self-discipline through
the permission to use that you grant to yourself; for then
the last state will be worse than the first.

CHAPTEE LIX.
Freedom and License.

To displace servitude by mastery, to attain to freedom,
ruling where one has been ruled, is the summit to be attained,
but it must be reached by wise methods. Limited perception
may mistake license for freedom and create a new bondage,
unseen until revealed by its consequences. There is no true
freedom except by obedience to the Great Purpose, an obedi-
ence the reverse of submission. Only the enlightened obey,
the ignorant submit. If the law of cause and effect rules
over all and is imperative, obedience to it will remove the
necessity for submission to its consequences.

But one must not permit perception of the strength of
this law and of the power to use it, of the great truth of being
and the comparative nothingness of all evil, to lead him to
the conviction " I can do what I please, there is no sin, sick-
ness or death." This is a recklessness often due to intellectual
intoxication where the moral sense is not keen and strong.

Such self-permitted license overthrows moral standards
when they should be raised even higher than before. In-
stances of this overthrow, thus permitted, have been not in-
frequent in the development of the metaphysical movement
in the last twenty years, and they will continue till earnest
and thoughtful investigation of principles and what they
compel takes the place of the enthusiastic and emotional fervor
that has failed, and will continue to fail, to lay the founda-
tion of a true science of self-help. No search for soul-affini-

259

260 FREEDOM AND LICENSE.

ties, no ruptures of families, no disregard for strict moral
obligation can follow from application of the principles of
the Science of Being.

When one has made in himself the reconciliation between
the Natural and the Spiritual, he will be able to make the
consequent reconciliation between every obligation natural
relations impose upon him and the spiritual needs of his in-
dividual self. He will not mistake licensed indulgence of
the sensuous nature for spiritual freedom, or the normal en-
lightened use of all material things as dangerous to spiritual
development.

Such use will never permit one to relax a single effort
for mastery, to excuse deficiency and remain content with
that which falls short of complete victory. To see and know
what one is doing and the consequences of the doing, unde-
ceived by appearances because of knowledge attained, candid
and fearless for the same reason, undeterred by either the
fear or the misplaced sympathy of those who do not see, is
to develop the mastery of human existence that is possible
through obedience to the principles that govern such result.

When one steps into and lives in this realm of true
freedom, breathes its invigorating air while he looks out over
the expanse of his rightful domain, he will pursue serenely
his way in the world of affairs, brought into bondage to none
of them, rejoicing in all of them as opportunities for demon-
strating the power of the Son of God over the Son of Man.

CHAPTEK LX.
What Demonstration Includes.

As human nature is composite, is variety in unity, there
,must be variety of demonstration, but all leading up to a
unity that is the perfection of demonstration. The physical
variety is most attractive at first for most people. The dis-
appearance of a condition of bodily suffering — what is called
such — is hailed with joy as a wonderful demonstration of
what can be accomplished; but the too evident tendency in
many directions is to overlook other and more subtle demon-
strations and overvalue the physical result.

When this result is accompanied by increase of wordly
prosperity many consider their cup of blessing full to over-
flowing; and too many of the leaders in this modern move-
ment point to these two results as the incontrovertible proof
that they " are in the truth " and what they teach is " the
truth " ; meaning that those who do not see and teach as
they do, or manifest this kind of result in the same degree
are not " in the truth " and therefore can not demonstrate it.

Satisfaction with " the loaves and fishes " is a deadener
of spiritual activity if it lead to such comparisons and judg-
ments, if it accept a kind of demonstration for completeness
of demonstration. Demonstration is not and can not be com-
plete except as the result of regeneration, the making over
of a man. All that belongs to this making over gives oppor-
tunity for demonstration, and increased thoughtfulness for
others in place of selfish self-absorption is quite as necessary
and important demonstration as the disappearance of dyspep-
sia. Unfortunately with many it is not so ranked and uncon-

261

262 WHAT DEMONSTRATION INCLUDES.

seiously a selfish and uncharitable egotism is unintentionally
bred and fostered by those whose only standard of compari-
son and judgment is the immediate physical result.

Change within is necessary to change without that is
worth having, a change that must never be allowed to stand
still if its results are to become permanent. The eradication
of unworthy impulses and desires, of faults of character, is
quite as important as removal of physical (?) pain or acquisi-
tion of property. Whatever the measure in which this kind
of health be obtained, how it is obtained governs its perma-
nence. If due to a positive dominant mental influence that
is not rooted in an awakened spiritual nature and need, and
so directed to a complete regeneration of the soul, as com-
pared to what must still be accomplished its time is short.

There are other things to think of beside riddance from
suffering and plenty of money. " Whatsoever things are
lovely" "think on these things"; the divine character can
not be built completely till all necessary material is brought
into the work. When one restrains the impulse to anger,
the hasty word, holds it with a strong hand while he with-
draws its strength and sees it die, turns with increased love
and gentleness, thereby, to do a kindly act instead, he is
demonstrating the truth of being.

The " Sermon on the Mount " is one long record of pos-
sible demonstration. To make our best effort to live to it,
to its spiritual significance — and effort is not our best till
enlightenment of the Great Purpose reveals this significance
— is to keep the conditions under which demonstration stead-
ily increases and includes more and more of the proved pos-
sibilities of God-derived being. To move steadily from theory
to demonstrated fact is to become master, is to attain an all-
round mastery that is true spiritual development in place of
an excrescence that is attached to the old man.

CHAPTER LXI.
Science and Religion.

Science and Religion are but two faces of the same Truth.
If being is dual in nature, male and female in one, truth will
wear differing aspects to the soul and be sought through dif-
fering channels; and yet the unity of being will sometime
compel the recognition that truth is one.

The male or reasoning nature seeks truth through Sci-
ence, using the stepping stones of discovered facts; to the
female or intuitional nature truth announces itself without
the medium of previously discovered facts. Science as the
masculine and Religion as the feminine are to be married in
human existence, they are already one. The two natures
in ourselves seek satisfaction, each in its own way, and when
found it is the same truth that satisfies.

But, in their effort to gain knowledge, how many hobble
along for years on one foot instead of walking firmly on two.
The physicist is careful not to enter the domain of specula-
tion, the religionist equally careful to guard " sacred science "
from the consequences of modern, discoveries. The physicist
stifles the side of his nature that calls for Religion, the relig-
ionist smothers the nature that demands intellectual sat-
isfaction.

If workmen are engaged in tunneling a mountain from
opposite sides they will come face to face some day if they
work long enough, if they do not cease effort because of in-
sufficient tools. Whether they begin work on the east or on

263

264 SCIENCE AND RELIGION.

the west side of the mountain does not matter provided they
get through it, and with two sets of workmen the work
from one side is bound to meet and supplement some day the
work from the other side. If physicists and religionists seek
long enough each will let daylight in upon the other; a day-
light in which they will meet and embrace rapturously if they
are sincere in their desire for knowledge.

But at present the religionist is hampered by his belief
that what he has been taught as revealed religion is the in-
fallible truth, and the physicist by his belief that speculation
is fatal to discovery of truth. Neither is free to select such
tools as he chooses, his free choice and use of whatever offers
is hampered by conservatism; and so the slow process of dis-
integration of human opinion, of which one is scarcely con-
scious it is so slow, must effect gradually what might be more
speedily and thoroughly accomplished.

If Truth is what Principle compels then both its mascu-
line and feminine aspect are necessary in and belong to hu-
man existence. The widespread and marvelous variety per-
taining to its masculine or scientific aspect is brought into
oneness as " the end of the law " for the one who feels its
unity. For him religion contains all, though from the physi-
cist's point of view he disregards facts.

As the Science of Being reveals the nature of the genus,
Man, and its Principle, the meaning of Existence and the
Purpose wrought out, it points the way of reconciliation be-
tween these two great magnets for the human soul; magnets
that draw after them the whole human race. This recon-
ciliation accomplished first in the individual, a reconciliation
that moves him to give glad welcome to all scientific dis-
covery while he loses no whit of his adoration for the Most
High, will tend to become universal as one after another
makes this marriage in himself; and the offspring of the

SCIENCE AND RELIGION. 265

marriage will be a new species in the world, he who has
" made in himself of twain one new man."

Opposing views of existence become united views accord-
ing to the measure of understanding of its plan. As under-
standing is gained there will be no more religious man than
the truly scientific man, and no man more scientific in his
methods and conclusions than the religious man. The all-
compelling Push brings, in the course of time, this marriage,
for the soul's destiny is not fulfilled till it is accomplished,
demonstration is not complete till each half of our dual being
seeks and finds unity with its mate, and till the highest species
is produced from the original Genus.

What mankind may be it will be when it is mothered
by Religion and fathered by Science; when the spiritual
nourishment drawn from the mother is strengthened by the
support of the rational nature. Through the lack of assimila-
tion of spiritual and mental food caused by conflict and dis-
pute the race is puny as compared to what it may be, stunted
in growth though the full stature of self-consciousness is its
possibility. He who can find the male and female in him-
self and wed them for himself will grow and strengthen,
receiving and assimilating the soul food that comes through
both channels till he is built up into the " begotten Son "
who knows, not believes, the Truth because he is of the Truth.

This man, the living incarnation of what all are more
or less blindly seeking, must ever be a puzzle and a wonder
to both secular and religious devotees when they can find no
common ground for unity. He is a standing contradiction
to the claims of each, though he is also their confirmation,
rejected of them while he saves them from loss and destruction.

As Pilate's question " What is Truth ? " was answered by
its incarnate presence, an answer neither heard nor seen, so
to-day the offspring of this mystic marriage has the witness

266 80IEN0E AND RELIGION.

in himself and bears witness unto the world, though the world
as then so often fails to see and hear.

Both Science and Religion are abstractions till they be-
come living through apprehension, comprehension and feel-
ing. All possible knowledge belongs under one or the other
head. Walking in both roads in pursuit of knowledge the
soul finds sometime that the two ways meet in him, that he,
himself, is the end of all.

CHAPTEK LXII.

Fbom Dust to Divinity.

"Without making the text-book too large for convenience
the solution of many of the complicated problems of Existence
can not be included. But as in all mathematical problems
unvarying fundamentals are involved, must be adhered to if
correct answers be obtained, so in these problems the funda-
mentals herein set forth are involved. If they are under-
stood, applied, and followed unswervingly, enlightenment
follows, the answers are gained.

As Man is prior to evolution he can not be the product
of evolution; but the existent soul is in that process of evo-
lution that is its ascent from seeming powerlessness to con-
scious dominion. From dust to Divinity is an open road that
begins and ends with the eternal, a road in which all species
are found for it runs through all kingdoms.

Or it is a chain in which are no missing links for the
inner eye that can distinguish between real and phenomenal.

A simple illustration is given as aid to those who wish to
follow the subject of " Evolution."

It is the existent soul, one soul, that climbs this Scale of
Being, animating each kingdom and all it includes as it
passes through each on its way to ultimate accomplishment.
All things, animate and inanimate, have " souls," because the
Soul in being is moving out from being on and up to full
manifestation. In being, Soul is one, in existence living soul
is one whole whatever the aspect afforded by the differing

267

268

FROM DUST TO DIVINITY.

THE SCALE OF BEING.
Divinity

Spiritual Kingdom
Moral "

Mental "

Human Kingdom 0

Animal "
Vegetable "
Mineral "

Dust

natures back of the differing shapes that are animated by it.
Conquering each kingdom as it climbs, exceeding the limits
of each kingdom in turn because of the Great Push that com-
pels, passing thus through each and all it reaches at last the
sublime height that is the Likeness of God — the Personal God.

Not till the Human Kingdom is reached is the species
provided by Nature that can find the Plan and Purpose and
co-operate with them, adding its own volitional doing to what
is being done. At this kingdom in the Scale of Being the
road traveled becomes invisible to senses that nave traced
continuity of physical structure, for here psychical structure
is successor to physical. The building has a more subtle
quality, goes on behind the material veil as the soul-structure
that is to reach on and up to Divinity.

For this to be accomplished the soul must inhabit the Men-
tal, Moral and Spiritual kingdoms as their Master, not as a

FROM DUST TO DIVINITY. 269

suppliant. Here volition plays its part, and the individual
doing is added to what is being done by God and Nature.
Physical structure, Psychical structure, and Spiritual structure
must follow each other for Divine Embodiment to be.

Behind the veil of the Physical the rest is builded as
" the temple of the Living God," a veil that at last shall be
rent from top to bottom, its uses past, the glories it has hidden
revealed as the permanent and unchanging.

REMARKS.

Of course you understand that " from dust " does not
mean that the ascending soul is of the dust. Remember that
Principle and the Derived being in which is Soul, the Like-
ness of God, are back of what is called " dust," that with
"dust" begins the traceableness of ascent or evolution; its
registration as it were.

Study faithfully what is herein set forth and you will be
prepared later to deal with the more abstruse and vexing
problems that modern thought is wrestling with. " Evolu-
tion," " Reincarnation," " Psychic Phenomena " and many
others challenge the attention of the thinker. Whatever the
opinions of them one thing is sure, " the principle of things
must interpret them."

Stick to principles, now and always, and the way of solu-
^tion must open to you.

CHAPTEE LXIII.
The Eelation of the Bible to the Science of Being.

The system of thought named " the Science of Being "
does not rest upon the Bible as its authority. If true, its
truth is independent of the Bible as of all other authority
and must be self-evident to be seen and known. But the
Bible affords confirmation of the argument, for its meaning
as illustrated by the history and imagery employed is the
same deductive continuity. The premise of this system, is
identical with the first chapter of Genesis, the conclusions
step by step are the same even to the ultimate, for the Bible
is an orderly presentation of abstract truth, of what Prin-
ciple compels.

The teaching can be given from beginning to end as argu-
ment solely, or it can be accompanied by a constant paral-
lelism in the Bible. It does not view the Bible as something
too sacred to be critically examined, or so old-fashioned as
to be obsolete, but as an illustration of the nature of the
human soul and the order of its development according to
the law governing the development.

It looks upon the Bible as an Arithmetic, presenting prob-
lems for solution, problems to be solved by the reader as he
discovers their principle, unsolvable without such discovery.
Allegory, imagery and history are the material used for this
formulation, a letter that " gendereth to bondage " if it is
mistaken for the truth of the book, but is only a dissolving
veil when its meaning is discerned.

270

RELATION OF BIBLE TO SCIENCE OF BEING. 271

As the Science of Numbers is pure science the date at
which an Arithmetic is written has nothing to do with its
nature, and the fact that only a mathematician can write an
Arithmetic is a more necessary clue to its meaning than the
personal name of the author. The " Higher Criticism " of
to-day is wasting time over the needless except as by its efforts
it lessens the superstitious fear with which the book has been
regarded. Time and place of writing and name of writer,
the accuracy of History, are of small moment as compared
with " What does the Bible teach? " From Genesis to Bev-
elation it is a logically consistent whole, as is not Theology.

Both classes of minds can be reached by the Science of
Being, those who are suffering a violent reaction from the
Bible and can be held only by cold reasoning, and those to
whom it is still sacred and dear. Emancipation from super-
stition and prejudice, reverence for all in the Bible that ap-
peals to our nobler nature, willingness to suspend judgment
as to the claims made for it till its nature is proved, rather
than asserted, is all that is necessary.

It is a mystical book, its meaning, like the meaning of
an Arithmetic, is told in the only way it can be told, by
illustration. It is as truly a scientific as a religious book, it
appeals to the reason as well as the heart, contains scientific
facts welcomed throughout the world as recent discoveries,
is a gold-mine of treasure for the physicist as well as for the
religionist.

The Old Testament presents the positive Science of Being
analogous to the Science of Numbers, the New Testament
the teaching, preaching and demonstration of the Science of
Being; the theoretical and the practical.

And yet, be it remembered, the argument named " The
Science of Being " does not offer the Bible as its authority.
Each student must find, know and prove for himself. The

272 RELATION OF BIBLE TO SCIENCE OF BEING.

way is pointed out, it remains for him to walk in it till he
gains what may be found.

ILLUSTRATION.

■' ^eu>~Tkt~t~imtri£~
* Possible. Hesu.lt
7T5« Tcreena 2 Gtoot

tmf*~ivso~ta.l (foci.

Old Tustamtnt
tcma n Sxtst~nc£,

Each member of the human race, irrespective of nation-
ality, is an individual instance of the Old Testament; and
may be a like instance of the New Testament.

The nine stages of the soul are analogous to the nine
months of physical gestation from conception to birth.

CHAPTER LXIY.

The Difference between Christian Science and the

Science of Being.

As the teaching known as " Christian Science," and its
demonstrations also, have attained prominence, a prominence
that in large measure is well-deserved, the question is likely
to be asked, " What is the difference between this teaching
and the Science of Being? " It is best answered by parallel-
ing some of the main propositions and conclusions.

Christian Science. The Science of Being.

Premise — God is Principle. Premise — The same.

Principle is the beginning" of The same.

Creation.
God is Spirit, Life, Love, Intelli- The same.

gence, Substance, Mind.
Man is the image and likeness of The same.

God forever.
Man is spiritual, not material. The same.
Man expresses God. The same.

Man is the idea of Infinite Mind. The same.
Man is changelessly whole and The same.

perfect.
Man never sickens nor dies. The same.

Sin sickness and death are na The same.

part of Man.
There is no evil in Man. The same.

Man is always in unity with God The same.

and expresses nothing con-
trary to God.

18 273

274 CHRISTIAN SCIENCE AND SCIENCE OF BEING.

Chkistian Science.
There is no matter.

There is no World.

There is no body.

There is no Time.

There is no sin.

There is no evil.

Good is omnipotent.

There is no sickness or disease.

There is no mortal man.

Mortals must grow up and into
immortals.

The Science of Being.

Matter is a natural factor in
Creation.

The World is the Phenomenon
relative to the Noumenon.

Body, as soul -embodiment, be-
longs to Creation.

Time is the order of manifesta-
tion, as sensed by the existent
soul.

Original sin is an unintentional
mistaking by the existent soul.

Evil exists only in human con-
sciousness.

The same.

Disease is that which is contrary
to harmony. It is in human
consciousness as a discord —
lack of accord with the har-
mony of true being. Forms of
sickness are expressions of
this lack of accord. They are
sensed by the soul and are
finally conquered by victory
over susceptibility to them.
Applied knowledge of the truth
of being gives the victory.

Man is the Genus, perfect and
eternal as the Idea of Infinite
Mind. A man is the human
personality, a species of the
Genus. This personality is
eternal subjectively and mortal
objectively.

The body of a man will come to
an end. The living soul is des-
tined to immortality.

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE AND SCIENCE OB1 BEING. 275

Christian Science.

Mortal existence is a dream with-
out a dreamer.

Suffering is a claim without a

claimant.
There is no sensation in matter.

All sickness is mortal mind.

The body is mortal mind.

Matter is mortal mind.

The Science of Being.

A state of consciousness has its
natural limitations. The state
of sense - consciousness is a
dream as compared to the
reality of being". The existent
soul, in its first, or infant,
state, is the dreamer.

Suffering is a quality of sensa-
tion.

Sensation is in the existent soul
and is qualified or classified ac-
cording to the sense of it.

All sense of suffering is the re-
sult of misconception of being,
is the effect of its cause— er-
roneous thinking. The not-
yet-developed soul is the think-
er. It thinks according to
mortal sense, is beguiled by ap-
pearance.

The materiality of the phenom-
enal body is the integration of
mortal sense. Body is a funda-
mental factor in Creation. Its
qualities are the varying in-
tegrations in the natural mold.

Matter is original in Creation as
a part of the order that con-
stitutes Creation. Materiality
is the objective aspect of mor-
tal sense. Matter and materi-
ality are not identical. Ma-
teriality belongs to existence,
not to Creation.

276 CHRISTIAN SCIENCE AND SCIENCE OF BEING.

Christian Science.

The fading forms of matter are
the fleeting thoughts of mortal
mind that have their day be-
fore the permanent perfection
of Spirit shall appear.

Mortal mind improves until error
disappears and nothing is left
that deserves to perish.

There is no mortal mind.

The Science of Being.

The materiality of objects will
dissolve and disappear as mor-
tal sense is conquered by the
spiritual sense of being and
existence. Mortal sense can
not penetrate to and grasp the
eternal realities, back of all
objects. The figures themselves
are perpetual in their relation
to spiritual verities, their ma-
teriality is temporal.

A man learns through experience
to put off the false and mis-
leading sense and to cultivate
the true sense of being and ex-
istence, growing thereby to the
spiritual and eternal realiza-
tion of all that is God-derived.

There is but one Mind, and
neither Man nor a man can
have another separate mind.
This one Mind is fully ex-
pressed in the being, and facul-
ties of being operate in the
soul. Mortal sense believes those
faculties to be a separate mind
belonging to the human per-
sonality. Therefore, though
there is no mortal mind, no
such cause for anything what-
ever, there is a mortal sense,
the sense natural to the exist-
ent soul and leading to con-
clusions that are afterward to
be corrected by the faculties of
being.

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE AND SCIENCE OF BEING. 277

Christian Science.

The foundation of mortal discord
is a false sense of man's origin.

What is termed disease is formed
unconsciously.

We think we are healed when a
disease disappears * * * we
are never thoroughly healed
until liability is removed.

Matter is made up of forces and
force is reduced to Mind.

To be made whole we have only
to forsake the mortal sense of
things, turn from the lie of be-
lief to Truth and gain the facts
of being from Immortal Mind.

Adam ought to be thought of as
a dam, an obstruction, as error
opposed to truth — as standing
for that which is accursed,
spoiled, or undone.

The Science of Being.
The same.

The same.

The same.

The same
The same.

Adam represents the natural ex-
istent soul, the natural human
personality, the product of God
and Nature, primarily innocent
of knowledge, but capable of
gaining it. His " fall " is the
misconception of self, the nat-
ural self-idea which, as error,
stands in the way of further
progress in self-knowledge and
demonstration of true being.
His " sin " is not ethical but
natural. Salvation from sin,
redemption from its conse-
quences, victory over mortal
sense, are the growth of the
soul from its Adam-infancy to
its Christ-maturity.

278 CHRISTIAN SCIENCE AND SCIENCE OF BEING.

Christian Science.

The verdict of the so-called five
material senses victimizes mor-
tals, taught as they are * * *
to revere those five personal
lies.

Knowledge is a mortal, finite
sense of things that Spirit dis-
claims.

Progress is born of experience.
It is the ripening of mortal man
that drops the mortal for the
immortal.

Universal salvation rests on pro- The same,
gression and is unattainable
without it.

Christian Science draws its sup-
port from the Bible.

The Science of Being.

The five senses are not lies. They
belong to the real being, to in-
dividuality, and are spiritual
in nature. They operate in the
soul and the range of their
operation is the capacity of
self-consciousness according to
its degree of existence or devel-
opment. They are avenues for
impression and they never lie.
The conclusion of mortal sense
is the lie.

Existence is a persistent process
of gaining knowledge that in-
cludes the elimination from the
soul of the unfit, the errone-
ous; a process by which knowl-
edge becomes wisdom.

The same.

The Divine Science taught in the

original language of the Bible

came by inspiration and needs

inspiration to be understood.
Spiritual sense is a conscious The same,

capacity to understand God.
As immortal, we have a perfect, The same

indestructible form.

The Science of Being supports it-
self. It interprets the Bible
and the Bible confirms it.

The same.

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE AND SCIENCE OF BEING. 279

Christian Science.

It requires a higher understand-
ing to teach this subject prop-
erly and correctly, than to heal
the most difficult case.

Entire immunity from suffering
cannot be expected at this
period of time, only some
abatement of suffering and
sin.

Man is more than an individual
form with a mind inside of it.
He reflects Infinity, and in-
cludes in this reflection the en-
tire universe of God's creating.

To deny the existence of Evil, or
to flee before it, will involve
you in hopeless error.

The Science of Being.
The same.

The same.

The same.

Whoever practices this Science
through which the Divine Mind
pours light "md healing upon
this generation, cannot pursue
malpractice or harm his pa-
tient.

God has endowed man with in- The same,
alienable rights among which
are self-government and rea-
son. Man has individual right
of self-government.

To understand evil as a quality
of human thought and con-
sciousness is to lose all fear of
it and become able to overcome
it with good.

The same.

280 CHRISTIAN SCIENCE AND SCIENCE OF BEING.

The Scientific Statement of
Being.

There is no Life, Substance or
Intelligence in matter. All is
Mind. Spirit is immortal truth;
matter is mortal error. Spirit
is the real and eternal; matter
is the unreal and temporal.
Spirit is God and man is his
image and likeness; hence man
is spiritual and not material.

The Scientific Statement of
Being and Existence.

There is no Life, Substance or
Intelligence in Matter. As
First Cause or Origin, Mind is
all, is the governing Principle
of Creation. Spirit is the
eternal Substance, Matter is
but qualified motion. Matter
is eternal as compelled by the
governing Principle, but ma-
teriality is temporal. A man
is temporal in his physical
presentation, but eternal in
his being. Spirit is God, and
the Man, or the being, is God's
image and likeness; hence Man
is spiritual and not material.

Christian Science is, practically,- more a religion than a
science, satisfying as a religion to thousands notwithstanding
its disconnected and fragmentary statement as a science. As
a religion it has a dogma, disproved as truth by the very
principles it enunciates as a science, but accepted as truth by
the thousands who call it a science without being able, ap-
parently, to supply the missing links needed to make the
chain complete. It is regarded as too holy to be added to or
taken away from, because it is a special revelation to one per-
son who is the highest manifestation of God the world has
ever known; one chosen out of all mankind to receive it.

The Science of Being as a chain of deductive reasoning
is first a science, and afterward, when seen as such by the
individual, the basis of his religion; the foundation whereon
he stands in his individual relation to God while he does what
he may do to know and prove his possibilities from God.

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE AND SCIENCE OF BEING. 281

It places all the resources of infinity in the hands of any
one man, and bids him see, use, and prove for himself as the
equal of all men, equally endowed.

It teaches him to look for and find his God by use of the
divine birthright that is his as much as it is any other man's;
to come into conscious communion with this Supreme Intelli-
gence that will instruct always its own Son.

It saves alive all in differing religions that accords with
undeviating principle, and destroys only the human dogmas
interwoven in their web and woof of truth.

It helps him to " the healthful development and right
life of the spiritual nature " that enables him to reach out
to and join hands with all mankind in all well-meant efforts
for righteousness without losing from under his feet the firm
and sure foundation.

It leads him to love his neighbor as himself because it
shows his neighbor to be as himself, possessing the same Grod-
endowments, having the same race to run in consequence;
and inspires him to live and love with his brother instead of
as one apart from the rest.

It shows, every utterance of truth a revelation, and every
speaker of it a revelator.

It is abstract truth, impersonal from beginning to end.
It compels a Knower, not a believer.

It imposes, in the name of freedom, no new bondage in
place of an old. It liberates the soul, tends to individualize
it, helps it to find and appropriate to itself all truth, to
demonstrate the truth found.

It prevents one from being contented with the mere
change of physical condition so often called " Healing " and
inspires him to fresh endeavor for the higher results without
which this kind of Healing is a pitfall and a snare.

282 CHRISTIAN SCIENCE AND SCIENCE OF BEING.
/

Affirmation of Being.

"With reverent recognition of my birthright, I claim my
sonship with the Almighty.

I am free from disease and disorder.

I am in harmony with my Source.

The Infinite Health is made manifest in me.

The Infinite Substance is my constant supply.

The Infinite Life fills and strengthens me.

The Infinite Intelligence illumines and directs me.

The Infinite Love surrounds and protects me.

The Infinite Power upholds and supports me.

I am out of bondage.

I have the freedom of the Sons of God.

With all that is in me I rejoice and give thanks.

God and man are all in all, now and f orevermore.

HOW WE MASTER OUR FATE,

By URSULA N. GESTEFELD.

A series of articles, descriptive and explanatory of human experience
and what we can do to make it satisfactory. Appearing originally in
The Exodus, they are now published in book form with a preface by
the author.

Table of Contents.

The Inventor and the Invention. Words as Storage Batteries. ^

Law or Chance? The Origin of Evil.

Ascension of Ideas. Letting the Dead Bury its Dead.

Eelation of the Visible to the In- What is Within the " Here."

visible. The Hidden Body.

The Common Ground of Oriental The Way to Happiness.

and Occidental Philosophy. The Voice that is Heard in Loneli-
Living by Insight or by Outsight. ness.

Destiny and Fate. The Language of Suggestion.

Where the Senses Belong. The Ingrafted Word and what
Servant or Master? Comes of it.

The Man and the Woman in our The Law of Liberty.

Dream-consciousness. Constructive Imagination.

How to Care for the Body. Incarnation — The Purpose of Nat-
The Germs of Disease. ure Fulfilled.

The Power and Powerlessness of

Heredity.

Some Comments of the Press.

The book ought to be read especially by those whose self-reliance
and concentration of energy may have been wanting in the attempt to
conquer the tyranny of circumstance. — The Outlook.

It is full, complete, and it is our conviction that no greater book has
ever been written. It deals with abstractions to the absolutely practi-
cal extent that it compels the reader's thought inward by reason of
its living, essential power. Judged from any standpoint, the book
is an artistic piece of work; judged merely by the fair intellect, it
is a superb exposition of Truth. — Boston Ideas.

Happy the man who will obtain this book and read and reflect, till
its ideas live and work in him the fate-mastering power of its title.
The work is simply invaluable to those that " seek power on high." —
Morrison's Cyclops.

This book will be especially helpful to those whose reliance and
power of concentration are weak: whose energy has not been wakened
to an effort to free themselves from the tyranny of circumstance.
Simple and plain as these truths seem to be, they need to be uttered
again and again. — Our, Bible Teacher.

Size 6% x 8% inches, 109 pages. Printed on antique laid paper, with
wide margins and bound in Holliston linen cloth, stamped in ink with
original design.

Price, 75 cents, net, postpaid.

THE GESTEFELD PUBLISHING CO.,

Pelham, N. Y.

THE BREATH OF LIFE,

A Series of Self-Treatments.
By URSULA N. GESTEFELD.

Table of Contents.

For the Morning'. When there is Difficulty in Letting

For the Evening. go the Past.

For High Noon. When there is the Sense named

When there is a Sense of Injury. " Insomnia."

When there is Fear of Accident. When there is Dissatisfaction with

When there is Fear of Heredity. Environment.

When there is Fear of Death. When there is Need for Patience.

When there is Fear of Failure in When the Sense of Sight Dimin-
Business. ishes with Advancing Age.

When there is Dread of the Fut- When one Begins to see the Neces-
ure. sity for a Higher than Natural

When there is Proneness to Anger. Affection.

When there is Tendency to Self- When it is Desired to Lose Fond-
depreciation, ness for Money.

When there is Lack of Confidence
and Trust.

Some Comments of the Press.

" The Breath of Life," is a remarkable work of self-helpfulness and
is a great masterpiece in the expression of that for which it stands.
It may always be relied upon for counsel, with the surety that, when
the truths it contains are absorbed into the soul and thence have spread
their vast vitalities into the ultimates of being, its individual possessor
will be a truly happy person and one whose destiny is in his own
hands. — Boston Ideas.

There has long been a demand for such a work, suggestive in
both ideas and text, by which the reader should be enabled to help
himself. The book is certainly true to its title, every thought being
a life-giving inspiration and a ready aid to spiritual development.
Simple and direct in presentation, it is a capital work to put into
the hands of earnest truth-seekers of every class. Eminently practical
in contents, it is also neat and attractive in appearance. — Mind.

It meets you with help in every case where help is needed, and
presents an infallible suggestion enabling you to overcome all dif-
ficulties in all relations. The little book is a very arsenal of spiritual
force and should be the companion of every human being on earth.
It is the philosophy of Jesus Christ redeemed from the swamp of
tradition and dogmatic inutility and presented in its glorious living
practicality to the enjoyment of the faithful. — Morrison's Cyclops.

Size, 6% x 4% inches. 64 pages. Daintily bound in light green
cloth and stamped in purple and gold.

Price, 50 cents, net, postpaid.

THE GESTEFELD PUBLISHING CO.,

Pelham, N. Y.

REINCARNATION OR IMMORTALITY?

By URSULA N. GESTEFELD.

A valuable and timely book. The failure of dogmatic Theology
to answer satisfactorily the universal query, "Whence come I?
Whither do I go? " has awakened a new interest in the Eastern teach-
ing of Reincarnation and has caused a strong tendency to apply its
principles to Western life and ideals. In this the gifted author's latest
work, the truths of this teaching are clearly and vividly portrayed —
its errors, both in teaching and application, plainly shown. It is
the first work to offer valid and consistent objections to the strong
arguments advanced by Reincarnationists in support of that theory.
Void of assertion, all arguments presented are logical deductions from
a stated premise. To the many looking for " more light," who accept
the theory of Reincarnation in lieu of a better as explaining many
of the problems of human existence, this book will be welcome — will
prove a valuable guide and counselor.

Some Comments of the Pkess.

This book is not written from an orthodox Christian standpoint,
but it is for that reason likely to be more effective with those who
have gone into Oriental theosophy. Yet the fundamental Christian
ideas are here — the immanence of the transcendent Spirit, the con-
tinual incarnation of the divine in the human, the salvation of the soul
through an earnest laying hold of that which is eternal, and to-day
as the time to seek salvation. Theosophists may find this book easier
reading than the average Christian. The latter will profit by it, if
having the capacity to recognize thought akin to his own in modes
of expression somewhat dissimilar. — The Outlook.

This book is devoted to a refutation of the doctrine of reincarna-
tion, as preached by the Theosophists and believed by a large number
of students of new scientific religions. Mrs. Gestefeld makes the
point that Karma does not account for a first incarnation, although
it may for subsequent ones, and the doctrine is therefore imperfect.
She also claims that in the popular view of reincarnation no allowance
is made for a man's will, his individuality, or for the higher law,
which allows each incarnated soul to choose the manner in which he
will accept the experiences he is forced to live through. — Brooklyn
Daily Eagle.

I have recently derived great pleasure in hurriedly scanning the
rugged diction of a work on "Reincarnation or Immortality?" by
Ursula N. Gestefeld. In my busy life I cannot more than jump through
books — never read them. I was quite surprised to find some of my
own oft-cherished arguments in refutation of reincarnation lurking
in these pages. I advise everybody — especially all who have been
intellectually seduced by the blandishments of Oriental fancies — to
read this book carefully and studiously.— Rev. Henry Frank, in The
Independent Thinker.

Size, 6% x S% inches. 165 pages. Beautifully printed from new
plates on antique laid paper, with wide margins. Bound in Holliston
linen cloth, stamped in ink, with original cover design.

Price, $1.00 net, postpaid.

THE GESTEFELD PUBLISHING CO.,
Pelham, N. Y.

THE METAPHYSICS OF BALZAC,

As found in '* The Magic Skin," " Louis Lambert/' and " Seraphita."

By URSULA N. GESTEFELD.

As is generally known, the fiction of Balzac covers his philosophy,
and is the result of individual efforts to find the hidden meaning of
existence. He has formulated what he found in a certain system,
illustrated by the characters and incidents in the three famous books —
beginning with " The Magic Skin " and ending with " Seraphita." A
thread of continuity holds them together as a whole — a thread of
meaning that richly repays the seeker for it. For those looking for
a soul behind the seal of the letter, these essays will be found both
interesting and helpful.

Some Comments of the Press.
While some consider Balzac the greatest of authors, and others
can see no special merit in his writings, it remains true that what he
wrote is to-day receiving even greater attention than when he was at
the height of his success half a century ago. Hence there would seem
to be good reason for an able and careful commentary upon his literary
work, in part or in whole. The author of " The Metaphysics of Balzac "
is heartily in sympathy with the subject, and is to be congratulated
upon her manner of handling it. Lovers of Balzac will enjoy and
appreciate every page, while those who have held aloof from this
French master can in no better way, than by reading this little
volume, get an insight into his grasp of human life and action, and the
incisiveness of his analytical power. — Boston Times.

A book which any admirer of the great novelist ought to enjoy
read ig; the comment is always interesting and inspiring. — The
Ouuoolc.

This is a late work of a popular author— a volume that affords
new scope for the presenting of an old subject. If to criticise Balzac
is to criticise life itself, as Trent suggests, analogy would indicate
that to interpret Balzac is to interpret Life itself. Ever reeking " to
determine the actual relations between man and God," the . , ■ v

novelist in his trilogy of " The Magic Skin," " Louis L utaV and
'* Seraphita," has given to the world an outline of the human soul in
its various stages of development. And with consummate skill, Mrs.
Gestefeld has detected and unwound the underlying thread of con-
tinuity that holds these works together as a harmonious whole. The
struggles and sufferings of Raphael, the ravings of Louis Lambert, and
the sublime philosophy of Seraphita are portrayed in a light that is
full of meaning and rich in thought-food for the seeker after
truth. The author's interpretation fills the reader with wonder at
the deep spirituality of the inspired seer and his marvellous insight
into the operations of the human mind and soul. — Mind.

Size, 5% x 7% inches, 112 pages. Printed on antique laid paper,
with wide margins. Bound in purple cloth and richly stamped in
gold.

Price, $1.00 net, postpaid.

THE GESTEFELD PUBLISHING CO.,
Pelham, N. Y.

H 244 83

i?~*

^ /dfe'-, \/ SM£m %f

^ %

a? ^ •■

O >

a*^

.V

o • »

i0^ -^^yi ^o^ .

i?^ V

' • m •

1 * AVV^ -

^5

■v<» •

5 ^4 o W JOT* AV ^ » i

A4> 0... <s, -f ,.,., * A o„

:« a*. ^0< :^^- "o/

^o1

"C\ * ♦ ♦ •

>4<

.4> "^

^ r° ••til* °, *>v ••"••"^

V - <**'""•' ^ \3L -*.,

t < «

•fc.

Pn

*0^

r+6

& ■

><r >-. •:

v# 4 "J^m^* * «a» 4»*

^%.

^ —- "" •"'^^X'',V^.;v*-\o

*\<F >-••

*»

•°^

,1°,,

<» *'7V

oA *;^"'' Ao9 "^ *^T«* ^

,H°^

^"" i^1^' % °o J? Sl£i% V ^ ^Ul% %

k JUL 83

4T

^0

:♦ ^n1

^vv